A collection of oral histories about the BBC, taken from the BBC Archives; Alexandra Palace Television Society; and the British Entertainment History Project. Created by a University of Sussex team, with BBC History. Funded by the AHRC.
Connected Histories of the BBC Connected Histories of the BBC Collections Contact Project About Terms of Use Citation Guide FAQs & Guides Search Search Transcript Search Help Increase font size Decrease font size Cookies This website stores cookies for site personalization and analytics. Google analytics is used to generate statistics that describe how the site is used to inform the research institutions that fund this work. Permissions and setting can be adjusted at any time via the settings control. Accept Deny Settings Collections BBC - Oral History Collection BBC - A History of North Regional Broadcasting Alexandra Palace Television Society The British Entertainment History Project BBC - World Service Moving Houses Project BBC - Horizon at 50 Sussex - BBC Centenary Collection Gender Female Male Mixed Unknown Roles CHBBC Interview durations arranged in collections Dot Sizes Small 4 Large 11 Toggle 35 Default Light Medium Muted Vibrant High Bright Search Jobs and role descriptions Job title and role descriptions are shown in each interview page. Open the interview to explore further or use "Transcript Search" from the search menu to search the document collection and speech to text transcriptions. × Home About Collections Help FAQs Citation Guide Transcript Search Contact University of Sussex Browser Compatibility Check Connected Histories of the BBC is a multimedia catalogue that requires current HTML5 and CSS capabilities that have not been detected in your browser. Firefox, Chrome and Edge browsers are recomended. There are known issues with iOS devices and Safari that will be addressed before general release. You can dismiss this dialogue and continue if you wish. Close Load a collection list × The record list uploader populates a user's collection. Records are collected using the collect button . The list of records can be dowloaded for sharing or later use using the export button . Buttons for downloading and collecting are only enabled after records have been collected. Files are named ConnectedHistories.txt and are saved in the "Downloads" folder. Cancel Load Cookie Maker - disabled × Reset all preferences and opt out of using cookies. Re-enable at any time. Reset terms agreement. Currently set as "not agreed". Delete collection. Collection contains 0 records. Reset Fontsize. Currently set to default. Default Light Medium Muted Vibrant High Bright Select or reset colour Reset speech to text accuracy notice. Currently set to showing. Close Cookie Size Notice! × Collections of more than n records cannot be saved to your cookie. Download the collection before leaving the page if you with to preserve it for future use. Collection files can be loaded via the settings dialogue. Save collection file Close No HTML5 Capabilities Detected! × This website was designed to work with HTML5 web browsers. Your web browser does not appear to support these features and may not operate as expected. Try Firefox or Chrome. Close × Back Added - toolbar help × The pull down ‘Interviews’ menu lists all filtered search results. You can add these interviews to your ‘collection’ by selecting the ‘Add’ icon . This populates an exportable CSV file with the name of the interviewee, interview number and URL. Selecting the export button initiates saving the file, and the import button allows you to access previously saved ‘collections’. Added - toolbar help × The pull-down menu provides access to your ‘Added’ interviews. Selecting the export button initiates saving the file, and the import button allows you to access previously saved ‘Added collections’. export button initiates saving the file, and the import button allows you to access previously saved ‘Added collections’. Waveform help × The audio waveform is divided into a ‘zoom’ view in orange at the top showing around 6 minutes of data; and a full view in grey at the bottom. The clips button allows you to add clips from the waveform display, save them, and generate a URL for each. Speech to text navigation help × Start and stop the audio/video, and toggle between a ‘Navigate’ mode and ‘Clip’ mode. An autoscroll facility can also be implemented from here. In ‘Navigate’ mode, you can click on any word, and the playhead will move to that location. You can play the recording from that point and the highlighting of the associated word in the transcription will move with the speech. An orange box giving you the precise time location will also appear when a word is selected. Clip maker help × By clicking anywhere in the Speech-to-Text transcription you can select a Start point, and then an End point to identify a clip. You can then add a description or reference to a ‘note’ box. Once you have defined a clip, a ‘Save’ button will appear in the toolbar. Selecting this generates a unique URL that is saved to a CSV file, that can be viewed and exported via the ‘Clips’ manager. × The ‘Clips’ pulldown menu on the left will display all clips you have saved during the current session, either from the Speech-to-Text transcription or from the audio/visual waveform and any other interview you have worked with. The CSV button will download your clips as a csv file with details of the clip including a unique URL that sets the play head to the beginning of the clip and scrolls the page to ensure the waveform and toolbar is visible. The file will be called: ConnectedHistoriesAnnotations.csv. The amount of memory space remaining in your browser cookie (where the clips are stored) will also appear. You can normally save approximately 40 annotations in any one session. If you run out of cookie space to store clips, exporting the CSV file will allow you to clear the browser memory by selecting the bin. Below the toolbar will appear a list of all clips for this particular interview, including your notes and start and end times, with buttons to the right allowing you to ‘Play’, ‘Remove’ and ‘Show’ individual annotations. ‘Play’ will start the recording of the selection from the audio file, and the ‘Show’ button will bring up the shareable URL. Search Mode Help × Search ‘People’, ‘Roles’ and ‘Subjects’. Results will appear below with the distribution of results between these categories; and below this, the results themselves+. If no results are returned by your search text, try one of the other search options. The options include a ‘Speech to Text Transcript Search’, which searches machine generated transcripts, or a pdf search through AToM. Graph Controls × The macroscope graph will appear below the faceted browsing menu and will respond to your selections. You can also select and zoom into any part of the graph along the X or Y axis, and the results below will change in response. Selecting any individual dot will reveal the name of the interviewee, in the bottom left, with a link to the interview page. The toolbar allows you to change the colour palette, and to zoom in or out. The colour palettes are accessibility options designed for variation in visual perception. The palettes are the work of Paul Tol https://personal.sron.nl/~pault/. Palette colours can be customised using the swatches beside the collection filters. Once changed, the selected colour palette will be applied to the macroscope graph and all other colour coded elements throughout the site. Collections page help × This page has been designed as both an index page including listings for the seven collections in the archive, and as a search interface for working with specific collections. Selecting the view button will take you to a search interface at the bottom of the page, opened to that collection. The information button will opens the ‘Identity Statement’. Below this a search interface will appear, including both ‘search’ and ‘faceting/filter’ options. The default on this page (unlike the home page) is ‘filter’. All search facilities work in the same way as on the home page. Centenary page help × This page acts as a basic index listing of the interviews in the centenary collection. Selecting the view button will take you to the relevant interview and transcription. Terms and Conditions × You need to tick this box in order to access audio/video, speech-to-text transcriptions or legacy documents. The ‘Collection Note’, and ‘Collection Description’ tabs above provide general information about the collection and copyright details. Once ticked, your choice will be preserved for the remainder of your session and is taken to reflect your agreement to the terms and conditions for all materials. Add interview help × Populates an exportable CSV file with the name of the interviewee, interview number and URL. The pull-down menu provides access to your ‘Added’ interviews. Selecting the export button initiates saving the file, and the import button allows you to access previously saved ‘Added collections’. export button initiates saving the file, and the import button allows you to access previously saved ‘Added collections’.