BBC Genome Project

Screenshot of an OCR error (since corrected) in Genome. The text, "Uza TarbuclC's Christmas", should read "Liza Tarbuck's Christmas"

The BBC Genome Project is a digitised searchable database of programme listings from the Radio Times from the first issue in 1923, to 2009.[1] In December 2012, the BBC completed a digitisation exercise, scanning the listings of all BBC programmes from an entire run of about 4,500 copies of the magazine.[2] They identified around five million programmes, involving 8.5 million actors, presenters, writers and technical staff.[2] The listings are as published, in advance, and so do not include late changes or cancellations.

The issues were scanned at high resolution, producing TIF images and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was then used to turn the text from the page into searchable text on the Genome database.[1]

BBC Genome was released for public use on 15 October 2014.[3][4]

The aim of this project is to allow researchers to be able to find out information easier and to help BBC Archives to build up a picture of what exists and what is currently missing from the archive.[5][6] Corrections to OCR errors and changes to advertised schedules are being crowdsourced.[3]

Each listing entry has a unique identifier which may be expressed as a URL. For example, the very first screening of Doctor Who, is http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8f81c193ba224e84981f353cae480d49 A broadcast programme may have more than one such identifier, if it was screened (and thus listed) on repeat occasions.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "About this project". BBC. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kelion, Leo. "BBC finishes Radio Times archive digitisation effort". BBC Online. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bishop, Hilary. "Genome – Radio Times archive now live". BBC Online. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Sweney, Mark (16 October 2014). "BBC digitises Radio Times back issues". Guardian.
  5. ↑ "BBC's Genome Project offers radio and TV archive listings". BBC. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  6. ↑ Sweney, Mark (16 October 2014). "BBC digitises Radio Times back issues". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 October 2014.

External Links

Wikidata has a property, P1573, for BBC Genome identifiers (see uses)