January CAKE Morning(Putting Archive at your fingertips)

There were two speakers:

1. The first speaker was from the BBC as Information and Archive manger, who is in charge of what archives are getting out to the public in terms of the thing on television and the internet. He had an issue, things were being broadcasted once on T.V. were then put on a shelf to collect dust. He thinks it was a waste of something that took so much time to create only to be viewed once, therefore, the BBC archive sector created three Touch Tables that has access to all their archives including videos.

2. The second was a group of people who took part in recreating a French museum, who recently completed a archive exhibition recreation, in supporting information achieves that were forgotten.

Ps. There were tray full of cakes served, we had a lovely breakfast there. Karen Pang

Garry Campbell-BBC talkGarry gave a brief history• 1086- Edward wanted to find achieve and see what money could be found from it• William wanted to find out how much tax could be raised in the country• 900th BBC Anniversary (Doom’s Day Project)

Well enough about the history, the BBC use to store their data on discs and as time has moved on, technology kept improving, to an extent that the machines at the BBC cannot even play the discs and the data were trapped inside the disc from then.In 2003, some technology staff have found a way to extract the data from the disc, after so many years. They then invented a Touch Table there are only three that were ever made, it’s an interactive table that is digital. It has maps and once you zoom in you’ll be able to see icons of video and folder and by pressing it, it will activate the document to open or start playing the video.The text on the program were written by “children.”The Touch Table was the size of an actual table, but even as big as it is, it has it’s limits within that four by four screen. Therefore, the BBC gathered some people for 2 days in finding better ideas. They came up with some good ideas, and the person who over looked the project said Birmingham has become the Centre of Digitalization.

Second Group Speakers: Recreation of how the French Museum was re-created

So after gathering a group of people from all areas they were gathered together for 3 days to re-create the museum. It cost them all £50 for food and shelter when the stayed there.In exchange for a play ground that they could do anything in, is a good enough trade, plus they got to meet new people and make new contacts.

The groups there had worked very hard within those three days in pitching ideas, discussing, planning and finally creating the prototypes.

Some may describe the 3 days experience were like an “Italian family,” I’m not fully understanding that concept, but it sounds fun.

They only had 72 hours in producing the prototypes. And they’re pretty good, some had potentials, some worked and to be made to be placed in other museums across the country, and other may work in other museums then the one they were created at.

My personal thoughts…Listening to the talk for two hours was very interesting and being able to be there to try the Touch Table was fun, because as a viewer you get to experience it by touch and sound, being able to drag out documents and watch videos on a screen that is moveable by touch is amazing.

Seeing what technology that is out there, created for the sole purpose of solving certain issues has been inspiring and seeing the making of those items being made, made me envy their experience, because its kind of a once in a life time opportunity to have that many skilled people gather in one place and being able to communicate freely without appointments, without the long waited e-mails in confirming would a theory work. Just working there day and night is fantastic, and seeing a product, which was drawn lines on a paper come into reality is a feeling quite indescribable, until you have personally tried it.

It was a great talk, even though the travelling was expensive.