Colleges, University Video Archives

[John W King]

I've seen this touched on previous threads but has any one looked at old videos held in Colleges and Universities?
The reason I ask is because two colleagues of mine have evening jobs cleaning and caretaking a local college. They were chatting recently about how Abingdon College had just binned approx. a skip full of old videos (what format i don't know and by old I have no knowledge). It was too late to investigate further and quite likely they may have been purely educational.
However, when I was at college (Plymouth Polytechnic 1973 -75) I briefly joined their Television Group runby the Media Studies department. They had their own TV studio complete with open reel video recorders. The only session I can remember was where they were filming 3 girl dancers and mixing them in with Status Quo playing "Down Down" apparently taken from Top of the Pops. It just got me wondering what might be found in these educational establishment archives.

[Deleted]

I've often wondered if colleges / universities have been properly checked myself. I was also at college in the '72 - '74 period and we had an open reel video recorder that was used for both recording TV broadcasts and college projects. I once went through one of the reels and found some non-educational material (Morecambe & Wise for one thing) so I'd guess that it's an open book as to what was recorded on these machines at the time. Whether or not the tapes have stood the test of time and are still playable (and indeed if they still physically exist) is another matter, I suppose.

[Rob Moss]

Definitely worth asking. Unfortunately a lot of places will have cleared stuff out long ago, but there may well be some dusty old cupboard in some places. I've asked at the college where I work, and they don't know of anything here, but it may be worth seeing whether any of the other Oxford colleges have hidden archives. I'll look into it.

Now, if anyone else has contacts at any other Universities, Schools or Colleges, it might be worth a quick word..?

[Richard Marple]

I did wonder if some junked educational programmes might exist in school video libraries.

In the early 1990s my school still had some programming dating back to the 1970s, it was fun to see things like the BBC Schools diamond for the first time.

[Brian Denton]

I used to work at a University, and during the preparation for a big building refurb I was clearing out a little room used for a photocopier and some shelving. I found some handwritten depreciation schedules (ie of no use whatever) from 1947. This was in 2006 !

Never be surprised at hoarding/what you find in dusty substrata, anywhere. The problem is more likely to be physical condition.

[Deleted]

Yes. Educational establishments seem to default towards conserving / hoarding, being budget-conscious etc. I know when I visited a couple of colleges / universities in the early '90s, they had student libraries of off-air TV dating back to the '70s. Whether or not they've gone since or just been bundled into a cupboard, I don't know. It needs someone with an interest in TV that has legitimate access to such places to investigate the broader picture.

[Richard Marple]

I was lucky at one college to be allowed to salvage some old videos that otherwise have gone in a skip.

Nothing too interesting apart from some Open College On 4 from 1988 & a series of videos on the basics of computing from 1982.

[John Green]

I think this came up a while ago.Some universities will have been involved earlier than others in film and TV.I took it as an option at Warwick in 1981 on popular culture,film,and TV.
The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (which was at Birmingham University) and the Glasgow University Media Group were around at the time,and might have something worthwhile.
Have any universities ever received donations of material from former alumni,as happens in the States?

[Simon Exton]

In my experience, Universities throw pretty much nothing away. Admittedly, I worked in Chemistry departments, not Film Studies, but I'd say this is definitely something worth exploring. The problem would be that the archiving may be poor or even non-existant.

[John Green]

Have to add a note to that "universities throw pretty much nothing away."

My local university library secretly sold off-no auction,no bidders stocks of books going back,in some cases four centuries,including one with annotations by Isaac Newton.That last was part of a gift by a former lecturer,and made the cover of the Telegraph and the THES,while the British Library objected that it hadn't been allowed to buy the collection.
Not sure how much I'd trust universities with anything.Mind you,they bought computers with some of the library cash...

[Ian Wegg]

Brighton Polytechnic had a large collection of video tapes in the mid-seventies and I wondered what had happened to them.

I discovered earlier this year that "Screen Archive South East" was established in 1992 at the University of Brighton (i.e. the same place) so hopefully that material is safe.

~iw

[markboulton]

Sadly, I don't have much faith that people in charge of educational institutions any longer attach much importance to physical archives of any description, and see them as simply stuff that takes up space.

What with educational facilities becoming progressively housed in buildings rented back from PFI facility management companies, pressure is always on to 'find the best use of space', plus some institutions are moved from buildings that are 'not cost-effective to maintain' and move to smaller premises and in the process, have to find ways of jettisoning stuff that 'isn't really needed anymore'.

I think when people are allowed to make the choice, they will elect to keep things but such people I fear will more and more as time goes by get overruled.

And of course there will be times when the person with the most power will be someone who either (a) doesn't know, (b) doesn't care or (c) will do anything to make a quick buck (even if it is for the college coffers - it looks good on the CV).

[Andrew Doherty]

I think 'The Flip Side' 1966 BBC 2 drama, shown at the 'Missing, Believed Wiped' event a few years ago, was originally the result of a recording by an education establishment and, quite by chance, the leading actor found out about its existence.

So, it is always worth investigating. However, there were not many colleges and universities that would have had semi-professional video tape recorders in the mid to late 1960s.

Yours,

ANDy

[Ray Langstone (was saintsray)]

There have been some finds - mainly schools programming and continuity - from a college in the Border TV region this year, which Kal are involved in (I actually had some involvement in this myself, in a small way)....80's and 90's stuff by the looks of it. Anyone who has any contacts at a college or Uni should definitely make enquiries.

I am making enquiries with another academic institution in my old stomping ground in the Border region, and I will keep you posted if anything comes up.

[John Green]

It might be worth writing a letter (for the letters page) to the Times Education Supplement and the Times Higher ED. Sup.
These people are so starved of copy that the latter's printed (bits of) mine almost every time I've sent something in to my surprise.I was especially pleased with the pun about 'string theory'.
In fact,I'd have thought there was a short article here,going from early memories of those cabinet TVs viewed in darkened rooms,to the pressing need and importance of archiving.