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R&D hosted over 40 colleagues from across the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ on the 3rd of November for an intensive day of invention, innovation and development.Ìý The format was a - we've run them before on a larger scale, often with partners, (such as , and ) but this was a different, more specialised set up.Ìý This time we just pulled in people from within the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ who have been working independently on projects, technologies or systems that touch the archive in some way.

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 'Archive' as managed by the Information and Archives dept is a massive and varied collection- it includes video and film, radio broadcasts and recordings from the very earliest days of the corporation, and written archives and sheet music from well before.Ìý Add to that hundreds of thousands of photographs, and you begin to get a picture of the vast collections we hold.Ìý Beyond that though is the 'metadata'!Ìý This is the crucial cataloguing information; the production notes, the cast lists, running orders, music notes, accounts even.Ìý Today every moment of broadcasting is planned, coordinated and tracked by using millions of pieces of information about the programmes, their content, and event the way we deliver it to you, the audiences.

R&D have a core commitment to support the Information & Archives dept in their mission to preserve this heritage into the digital age, and to help the work of Roly Keating and Tony Ageh in developing new ways to deliver access to the archive for all our audiences.



At Archak we tried to bring together all the people who make that metadata, and those archives, tick.Ìý And for seven straight hours we worked at inventing new ways to join these all together.

The Hacks
In the end we had fourteen presentations of various hacks that had been thought up, designed, attempted, and in a few cases actually built!Ìý The aim of the day was to try new stuff, so the occasional noble effort that falls short, but still shows the potential, was well worthwhile.

We had a hack that looked at recent broadcasts of and plotted them on a map- as a programme that's often heavily influenced by local concerns this could add a new and interesting dimension for browsing content of interest.

A number of efforts joined forces in a 'mashup of mashups' to give a second by second breakdown of television content, then allow viewers to 'bookmark' the show at key moments, and then presented a time line with illustrated bookmarks highlighting the most popular sections of the show, with those self same screen-grabs scaled for popularity.

R&D's own staff produced quite a few interesting proof of concepts, including '6-degrees of Bruce Forsyth' which visually linked entries in the programmes catalogue to the eponymous entertainer, and an audio hack which would allow user to mix their own sound for media within a browser.Ìý This latter technology could be invaluable in future services that seek to make programmes more accesible to audiences with diminished hearing.Ìý Some ideas were explored with ambition, and provided some great insights, without actually producing working demos- the 'Image Based Programme Entity Timeline' being one such noble effort.

What Happens Next?
The point of a day like Archak is not necessarily to produce the next user interface that you'll use to find the repeat of a show you enjoyed, or event to produce a prototype of a new tool that will help a programme editor find that perfect clip faster (though those would be nice bonuses).Ìý Rather, it's to get the creative juices flowing, and make the very best use of the collective intelligence of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.Ìý On Tuesday we hacked, and on Wednesday we went back to our day jobs knowing about more data, more content, more tools and more people who can help us do our jobs better and more creatively- that's what Archak was for.

We had developers from London, Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol at Hackday, and at similar events we've had people from further afield.Ìý Later this month we're involved with , a massive dual site event in London and Manchester, where we'll have a barnstorming conference to join up people from all over the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ (plus a few guests from outside to stop us being too cosy), and hopefully have a similar effect across a broad spectrum of work areas.

So, watch this space- before too long we could be asking you to join us on one of these strange and magical days.Ìý And of course- we'd be delighted to come along to yours!