‘Presenting’ Television History: The Challenges of EUscreen

1. ‘Presenting’ Television History: The Challenges of EUscreen Sian Barber Royal Holloway, University of London

2. Introduction to EUscreen • Three-year project which began in October 2009 with a project consortium made up of 28 partners (archives, universities and technology providers) from 19 European countries to provide access to digitised audio-visual content from across Europe.

3. ATiT British Universities Film & Video Council Ceská Televize Cinecittà Luce Danmarks Radio Deutsche Welle Eötvös Loránd University Europeana Foundation European Broadcasting Union Hellenic National Audiovisal Archive Institut National de l’Audiovisuel Kungliga Biblioteket Maastricht University National Technical University of Athens Nederlands Insituut voor Beeld en Geluid Noterik Osterreichische Rundfunk Radio-Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française Radiotelevisione Italiana Radiotelevizija Slovenija Raidió Teilifís Éirann Royal Holloway University of London TAIK Aalto University School of Arts and Design Televisió de Catalunya Televiziunea Româna Telewizja Polska Utrecht University Vlaamse Radio & Televisie EUscreen project partners

4. EUscreen mission statement • “Although audiovisual content is now being digitised and some of it is already available online, access to audiovisual archives, television in particular, remains fractured and scattered. • EUscreen has developed a content selection policy and metadata framework that aligns the heterogeneous collections held throughout Europe and encourages the exploration of Europe’s rich and diverse cultural history and European television history in particular. • As one of the main audiovisual content aggregators for Europeana, EUscreen and its collection is also connected to an online collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries and archives.” • www.euscreen.eu

5. Video Active • http://www.videoactive.eu/VideoActive/Home.do • http://www.videoactive.eu/VideoActive/VideoDetails.do?id=VA_BBC20071011173302903&sw=berlin%20wall&curitem=10&curpage=3

6. EUscreen content selection policy

7. Comparative Virtual Exhibitions (CVE’s) • Each content provider to supply 5% of total content to two separate CVE’s • Content shaped and developed by an editorial team • Opportunity to consider a topic or subject in depth and in a discursive and informed way

8. A possible topic? The fall of the Berlin Wall • P. Major, In the Shadow of the Wall: True stories from Berlin’s Divided Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) • J.P.S Gearson and K.A Schake, The Berlin Wall crisis: Perspectives on Cold War Alliances (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) • E. Schurer, M. Keune and P. Jenkins, The Berlin Wall: Representations and Perspectives (New York : P. Lang, 1996) • M. Meyer, The year that changed the world: The untold story behind the fall of the Berlin Wall (London: Simon & Schuster, 2009) • J. A. Engel, The fall of the Berlin Wall: The revolutionary legacy of 1989 (New York : Oxford University Press, 2009) • P. Konstantin, There is no freedom without bread: 1989 and the civil war which brought down communism (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009)

9. References: • H. Wheatley, (Ed) Re-viewing television history: Critical issues in television historiography. (London: IB Tauris and Co Ltd, 2007) • P. Sorlin, ‘Historians at the Crossroads: Cinema, Television and After’, in G. Roberts and P. Taylor (Eds) The Historian, Television and Television History (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001) • L. Jordanova, History in Practice, (London: Hodder Arnold, 2000) • J. Bignell and A. Fickers(Ed), A European Television History (Blackwell Publishing Ltd; Oxford, 2008) • L. Cigonetti, ‘Historians and Television Archives’ in G. Roberts and P. Taylor (Eds) The Historian, Television and Television History (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001)