UK Higher Education enjoys a large number of JISC services and programmes and so it’s easy to miss some of the possible gems tucked away in a quiet corner somewhere. One possible example is the BUFVC which, with a small core team, focuses on the use of film, video and, more recently, audio in UK Higher and Further Education. If I was to summarize the BUFVC’s main offerings it would be databases, off-air recording, consultancy, and research. A search on the JISC site for BUFVC also uncovers a large number of references to the work of BUFVC.
Their work is certainly relevant to more than media studies and visual literacy, but their name is perhaps in need of an update. I certainly find their name makes me visualize cinemas, 16 mm film, and, for some reason, mahogany tables, and that doesn’t do justice to the range of work the BUFVC is actually involved in.
The BUFVC Off Air Recording Service is also interesting in that it captures and archives all the output of the main terrestrial channels in the UK, i.e. BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, and Five. The issue here is how such a service can hope to cope with the abundance of digital channels that are now available?
The bigger issue, of course, is that, unlike printed media, there is no legal requirement for a copy of a visual or audio production to be placed in a national archive and so some productions will literally disappear into the ether. OK, we might be happy to see some television output disappear into the ether but, in the context of cultural heritage, that’s not such a good thing.
So you might want to give the BUFVC Web site a visit.
