Preservation & Migration Seminar 2026

This presentation will focus on the challenges and learnings from the project to digitise local News cut stories held across the English regions. From the challenge of preserving this content while we still have the head life, support and expertise, to realising the opportunities of the regions moving to fully digital workflows, releasing physical storage and maximising the value of this collection to support the BBC’s Across the UK strategy.

The project includes around 26000 video tapes and 15000 Film reels and we’ll cover the steps from planning and preparing the collections, preserving the metadata, to logistics and digitisation as well as curatorial considerations which help support the BBC’s editorial and commercial ambitions.

These are live collections and therefore there is a requirement to provide continued access while the collections are transferred from physical carrier to digital.

Robust processes and quality assurance are key to driving confident disposal decisions of the digitised assets.
Eight months into the project, the workflows and processes have bedded in offering us a chance to reflect on the experience and successes so far.