BoB upgrade 1st August

The new BoB went live on 1 August with a fresh look, enhanced video quality and more powerful searching capabilities. Here’s what you need to know: 

Limited content and functionality during upgrade period

Throughout August we’ll be working on fully upgrading the system but unfortunately, some of our archive content and some functionality won’t be available during this upgrade period.

Initially you won’t be able to access your saved clips and playlists, but these should be accessible again in September. Some archive content broadcast before 1 July may also be unavailable, though most should be. Bear with us throughout August as the upgrade is completed. Archive content and enhanced functionality will be restored in September, along with many new features. We apologise for any inconvenience caused during the upgrade period.

Upgrade features for September 2016

• Media records based on our TRILT metadata, supporting more powerful searching capabilities
•  Better programme coverage and a permanent archive of all content from nine channels: BBC1  London / BBC2 / BBC4 / ITV London / Channel 4 / More4 / Channel 5 / BBC Radio 4 / BBC  Radio 4 Extra
• Better thumbnail previews on search results
• Preview clips before saving
• Label your own clips
• Personalised email alerts when your programmes are ready to view
• More detailed citation data 

Signing in

To sign in to BoB you can visit the new URL: learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand, or visit bobnational.net, to be redirected. Click the ‘sign in’ button on the home screen and then select your institution on the ‘Where Are You From?’ screen, then access BoB using your institution account details.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) now available to staff & students at Coventry!

While archive materials (those predating 2007) and in house created materials will continue to be accessed through the Helix Media Library newer off-air recordings will be available through BoB National from 1^st August.

BoB National is a shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for UK educational institutions. BoB enables all staff and students in subscribing organisations to choose and record any programme from 60+ TV & radio channels including 10 foreign language channels. Recordings are then added to the BoB media archive which currently holds over 1 million programmes, including all BBC TV and radio content dating from 2007, many with searchable transcripts. All recorded content is shared by users across subscribing institutions. 

Staff and students can record and catch-up on missed programmes on and off-campus up to 30 days after broadcast, schedule recordings in advance, edit programmes into clips, create playlists, embed clips into VLEs & share what they are watching with others.  BoB has Apple iOS compatibility making it accessible on smart phones & tablets. A single click citation reference allows you to cite programmes in your work.

You can find out more about BoB by viewing video tutorials on the BoB National site, or by contacting Jane Gibbs or Kevin Musson

Audiovisual citation: BUFVC guidelines for referencing moving image and sound

The British Universities FIlm and Video Council have recently published a report designed to help establish new ctaloguing standards for audiovisual media. The guide, Audiovisual citation: BUFVC guidelines for referencing moving image and sound , is available for purchase and to download from the BUFVC website and is intended to establish standards for film, television, radio, other audio (such as archival recordings) and new media (including online materials, video games etc) . The guide assigns sections to each of the types of material explains the rules for, and gives plenty of illustrative examples of, referencing as well as advice on in text citation.

The guidelines are intended to encourage best practice, but aren't intended to be prescriptive and are open to feedback for future updates. The intention is to continue to respond, where necessary, to the needs of the user - taking in to  account the development of new media platforms and technologies.

BFI Archive film resources online

Founded in 1933, the BFI is a charity combining cultural, creative and industrial roles, in the film industy. Projects include the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibitions at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals. The BFI awards Lottery funding to film production, distribution, education, audience development and market intelligence and research.

The archive resources available online include:
BFI Screenonline –  online encyclopaedia of British film and television featuring clips from the BFI archive
BFI InView  – holds over 2,000 non-fiction film and television titles from the 20th century to the early 21st. InView is easily searchable, comprehensively catalogued and clearly organised under six main themes:
 ·        Education
 ·        Industry and the economy
 ·        Health
 ·        Law and order
 ·        Environment
 ·        Immigration, race and equality
each of these has more refined subheadings, and there is a free text keyword search. Each of the six sections contains an introductory essay by an academic historian.
The colonial film website - contains details of more than 6000 films showing images of life in former British colonies, with over 150 available for viewing online.
BFI on YouTube - The BFI National Archive channel on youtube presents hundreds of free films, plus expert commentary and interviews.

Live from daryl’s house

Daryl Hall’s free monthly web show Live From Daryl’s House started in late 2007, after the artist came up with the idea of “playing with my friends and putting it up on the Internet”. The show has since been praised by Rolling Stone, SPIN, Daily Variety, CNN, the BBC, and music blogger Bob Lefsetz, all of whom have referenced Live From Daryl’s House as an exemplar of an established artist reinvigorating his career by collaborating with established colleagues and newer performers and posting the results online, exploiting the web to sustain and expand a loyal fan base by-passing the traditional media outlets such as radio & music TV which have a very narrow playlists. In addition to monthly collaborative performances there are links to Daryl’s own itunes, facebook and twitter pages and viewers are encouraged to leave comments – which a surprisingly large number do.   

The webcasts themselves feature an eclectic mix of established performers such as Joe Walsh, Toots and the Maytals, Todd Rundgren and Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas, along with relative newcomers such as Minus the bear, Canadian techno-rockers Chromeo, and British singer-songwriter Rumer. 49 of the previous 62 episodes can still be accessed under the archive tab, and run for anywhere between 27–60 minutes. The programmes, which comprise a blend of the guest and the host’s compositions as well as the occasional blues or soul standard interspersed with conversation, can be viewed as a programme or by individual tracks.

The NFB website

 You can watch documentaries, animations, alternative dramas and interactive productions on the web, or on your iPhone via the website of TheNational filmboard of Canada.  The site, which goves access to  in excess of 1,350 complete films, is free for personal use, and has titles covering subjects as diverse as the art and language, race, peace, aboriginal peoples (within and beyond Canada), the environment , health , medicine, sport and social issues. You can browse a list of the films available from alphabetical, subject or named director lists, or just browsing a list of the latest films added. 

Since the NFB's founding in 1939, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has been Canada's public producer of educational, artistic, inventive and socially significant  video material. Their mandate has been to engage Canadians and the world through the production of stories and media that reflecting the country and it's culture - hence many of the available titles come from the French speaking community.   The site provides the world with unique Canadian perspectives and points of view on many international as well as domestic subjects. The in the 70 years since its creation, the NFB  has produced over 13,000000 projects and won over numerous awards, including 12 Oscars and almost 90 Genies.

The John Peel Project

John Peel's record collection is probably the most notable in Britain. On his death it contained in excess of 26,000 albums, 40,000 singles and countless CDs.  While singles and CDs were filed alphabetically by Peel, his albums were filed numerically and cross-referenced on hand typed filing cards.  These cards form the basis of the Arts Council-funded website called The John Peel Project on The Space. In addition to the collection itself, there are links to Peel sessions (including the excellent 1974 session by David Bowie), photographs and videos of some of the artists featured in the collection  of  as well as home movie footage.

 

Users can browse Peel’s collection by clicking on the record case, after which a glide along the shelves with the mouse will allow you a glimpse of some of what’s there. Clicking on a record with available documentation allows you to see an image of Peel’s card for the item, complete with notes, an image of the sleeve and, in some cases  the notes he has made on the sleeve itself, as well as occasional links to tracks from the album on Spotify. The first album selected for inclusion, Mike Absalom's Save Last Gherkin for Me,  was chosen because it’s record card was the first filled in by Peel. In addition to the staples of  his radio show, there are artists whose presence among the collection might elicit surprise, under A for example, are  A-ha’s 1986 album Scoundrel Days and Abba's 1979 homage to disco Voulez-Vous.   The collection shows the breadth and chronological development of Peel’s taste, and includes music by bands that he later disparaged. In reflecting the eclectic and continually evolving product of  Peel’s apparently boundless enthusiasm for such a diversity of music, the John Peel Project all seems very much in the spirit of his radio show and is a joy for any music lover to explore.