100 years of Welsh programmes now available in Cardiff
People in Cardiff will now have access to hundreds of thousands of radio and television programmes from the archives of BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Cymru Wales and S4C on their doorstep.
Thanks to a new Clip Corners which are now open in Cardiff University’s Arts and Social Sciences Library as well as Glamorgan Archives, computer terminals have been placed in comfortable places where anyone can come and see and listen to the variety of programmes available.
The Welsh Broadcast Archive is the first of its kind in the UK, tracing almost a century of broadcasting. It draws together material from the screen and sound collections of BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Cymru Wales, S4C and the National Library of Wales.
By preserving, cataloging and digitizing this material and presenting it on a fully searchable website, the National Library of Wales is committed to making this extraordinary collection accessible to everyone.
Engagement
The establishment of these Clip Corners will ensure that communities beyond the National Library itself in Aberystwyth will be able to see the entire archive in their local area. Engagement work has already begun with groups across Wales, and the Clip Corners provide a space to work with community groups to explore and bring the archive to life.
As part of this project, a diverse collection of 1,500 clips will also be curated and made available for anyone to view online and on social media.
The Welsh Broadcasting Archive project was made possible through funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (£4.7M), the Welsh Government (£1M) and the private funds of the National Library of Wales (£1M).
Links
Rhodri Llwyd Morgan, Chief Executive of the National Library of Wales said: “Thank you to Cardiff University and Glamorgan Archives for working with us to create these new resources.
“We as a Library are dedicated to creating a closer link with the communities of Wales and to give people access to our collections in innovative ways. This Clip Corner will mean that we will build on the engagement work that has already been taking place with local groups in Cardiff in order to bring people closer to their radio and television heritage.”
Andrew White, Director of the National Lottery Heritage Fund in Wales, said: “Broadcasting has played an important role in documenting the history of modern Wales – from heartbreaking news reports from the scene of the Aberfan disaster; to inspirational lectures such as Tynged yr Iaith by Saunders Lewis, S4C’s first broadcast in 1982 and the successes and lows of the Welsh football team at the Euros in 2016 and the World Cup in 2022.
“It has also enabled us to look back and learn about our heritage through programme such as The Dragon Has Two Tongues: A History of the Welsh in 1985 and has put Wales on the map with popular series such as Doctor Who, Keeping Faith and Hinterland.
“It is our privilege to support this important and progressive project which will protect and share the broadcasting heritage of Wales so that today’s and future generations can appreciate, enjoy and learn from it for years to come.”
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The Clip Corners may be open to everyone, but access will obviously be difficult for the elderly or disabled or those living at a distance. Can anyone explain why the whole lot can’t be made available online, so that one doesn’t have to hike to Cardiff or Aberystwyth? If YouTube and the Internet Archive can do it, why can’t the NWM? (There may be very good reasons why but no-one has yet taken the time to explain them.)
I’m gonna take a guess here: Copyright.
If it’s online it can be copied, perhaps not just by clicking on “save as”, but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Indeed so Erisian. Copyright is the issue with The Dragon Has Two Tongues for example, as I understand it, and possibly so for most other NLW media. Intellectual property rights are enforcable in law, with penalties and costs for any breaches. All credit to The National Library of Wales for making these resources available wthin the limits of their copyright licence.
Why? Because she has only one pair of hands…
Coleg Harlech could not afford to rent TDHTT they wanted so much money…
Nonetheless, Coleg Harlech did have a weekly discussion group at the time the series was broadcast – I know because I was there! I also suspect that probably each episode was videotaped.
Dr Evans did not have a copy during our lively ‘discussions’…
As an old boy I should inform you a book co-authored by the said good Dr was launched in Bangor Y’day, I’ll add details shortly…
Neil Evans & Charlotte Williams (eds) Globalising Welsh Studies: decolonising history, heritage, society and culture, UWP available from 15 Nov 2024
http://www.gwales.com/ bibliographic/?isbn9781837721863
List of contents on this link
Should be an interesting read. Thanks for the info.
Seeing Wales is vastly underrepresented on all TV & Radio channels , especially the BBC even though we pay through the nose for the licence fee, presume that the alleged “thousands of programs” made available to the good people of Cardiff over the last 100 years are compressed so that they fit onto a 240GB SD card.