Transmission apparatus for radiotelephony, radiotelegraphy, radio broadcasting and television

Tender description

The Library is recognised as the home of the nation's radio archive. The current radio collection comprises around 250 000 hours. However, of the estimated 3 000 000 hours of radio broadcast in the UK each year from c.700 stations, the Library is capturing a mere 15 000 hours (mostly news-based content). It is estimated that 92 % of current UK radio is not being properly preserved, with only 2 % being made available for potential research post-transmission. To address this situation we plan to create a digital radio archive, based on off-air recording, which will preserve a proportion of ongoing UK radio output (emphasising speech-based content), and make this available for research. The first step is to build a pilot radio archive over a period of 2 years, covering up to 50 stations from across the UK, to be developed thereafter into a full service. The pilot will test technologies, scalability, sustainability, research use and integration with British Library systems. The Library is recognised as the home of the nation's radio archive. The current radio collection comprises around 250 000 hours. However, of the estimated 3 000 000 hours of radio broadcast in the UK each year from c.700 stations, the Library is capturing a mere 15 000 hours (mostly news-based content). It is estimated that 92 % of current UK radio is not being properly preserved, with only 2 % being made available for potential research post-transmission. To address this situation we plan to create a digital radio archive, based on off-air recording, which will preserve a proportion of ongoing UK radio output (emphasising speech-based content), and make this available for research. The first step is to build a pilot radio archive over a period of 2 years, covering up to 50 stations from across the UK, to be developed thereafter into a full service. The pilot will test technologies, scalability, sustainability, research use and integration with British Library systems.