BBC Archives Online?

I see that according to today?s Daily Telegraph, the BBC will announce later this week a trial of a scheme to make significant portions of its archive material available over the web. The service will start on a small scale, but according to the Telegraph, it is planned to launch a national service in a year?s time. The service will be free of charge to licence payers in the UK, but there will be charges for overseas users.

The BBC is a member of the Strategic E-Content Alliance, whose aim is to ?build a common information environment where users of publicly funded e-content can gain best value from the investment that has been made by reducing the barriers that currently inhibit access, use and re-use of e-content?. A service of this kind fits well with those aims, and could bring real benefits to researchers in many areas of the arts, humanities and social sciences. There will, no doubt, be many kinds of intellectual property issues to sort out, but we look forward to learning more about this initiative.