UCLA Library Launches Transformative Broadcast News Research Platform
Comprising digital recordings of hundreds of thousands of American and international TV news programs from 2005 to the present and featuring capture, search and playback capabilities that go beyond those of other public news archives, the UCLA Library’s newly launched Broadcast NewsScape opens up transformative possibilities for teaching, research and publication.
The technology developed for the platform captures closed-captioning streams, on-screen text and detected visual shapes, along with video feeds, which can be searched or browsed. Now in its initial launch phase, Broadcast NewsScape is accessible at http://newsscape.library.ucla.edu to users on the UCLA campus or those connecting from off-campus via the campus network. Project managers hope to launch the platform to the entire University of California scholarly community in the future.
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The current contents of Broadcast NewsScape include more than 200,000 recorded news shows from over 100 distinct programs, totaling approximately 150,000 hours, plus more than 1.1 billion words of accompanying closed-captioning text and program listings. All are indexed and time-referenced to enable full-text searching and interactive playback. The platform is continuously updated, and news feeds are determined in consultation with faculty.
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The UCLA Library’s participation has been supported by the Arcadia Fund‘s $5 million gift to transform UCLA Library collections. The platform’s contents and structure may be relevant to the UCLA Library’s project focusing on ephemeral media of the Middle East, also funded by Arcadia.
See Also: What Programs are Accessible via Broadcast NewsScape?
Scroll to Collection History Section.
See Also: This Internet Archive Blog post has more info including a useful chart.
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.