Wellcome Film FAQ
What is the Wellcome Film Project?
The Wellcome Library, in partnership with JISC Collections, aims to digitise and make available around 150 hours of historically significant moving image material.
This free-to-access archive of moving images will be selected from the historical medical film collections of the Wellcome Library. The online archive will consist of around 450+ titles that have been produced over the past 100 years, covering all aspects of medicine, health and social care provision and practice in the UK.
The digitised content will be made freely available through JISC's Film and Sound Online (FSOL) service, and the Wellcome Library website.
In addition to digitising selected films, the project will also create rich catalogue records, thus enabling items within this archive to be discovered though the Library catalogue and other collaborative bibliographic resources such as WorldCat and COPAC.
What are the project aims?
The aim of this project is to create – through digitisation – an online archive of around 150 hours of moving images and sounds, selected from the historical medical film collections of the Wellcome Library.
What content will you digitise?
The full content list to be digitised has not yet been finalised, but there are a number of criteria by which the list is being compiled.
The digitised content (450+ titles) will represent between 10% per cent and 15per cent of the total collection.
How did you select what content to digitise?
The full content list to be digitised has not yet been finalised, but there are a number of criteria by which the list is being compiled.
The digitised content (450+ titles) will represent between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the total collection. In proposing items for digitisation the Library has focused its attention on those moving images that meet the following criteria:
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High usage
The Library has looked at usage patterns over the past few years and has given preference to those items that are most heavily used in analogue format.
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Broad appeal
The Library has selected items that will provide a wide-ranging introduction to the history of medicine and will encourage users to undertake more in depth research on the rest of the Moving Image and Sound Collections.
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Rights cleared
The candidate items are either owned by the Trust, the copyright or licence agreements have lapsed, or agreement to publish has been granted.
How will the collection be made accessible?
All films digitised under this project will be made freely accessible over the Internet. Moreover, to enable these digital objects to be embedded in teaching materials, presentations and publications, moving images on the Wellcome Library website can be reused and repurposed under the Creative Commons Licence. This will enable users anywhere in the world to copy, distribute,
display, and make derivative works based on these films, providing such uses are fully attributed and done on a non-commercial basis.
Finally, to facilitate access, all content will be segmented into three- to five-minute clips, and each clip, as well as each film, will fully be catalogued.
Can you outline the digitisation specification?
The digitisation process involves transferring the material from its original analogue format onto individual digital tape copies. Original media includes 16mm negative and positives, 1" and ¾" tape and Beta SP. Digitisation will be onto Digibeta, and, in some cases, HDCAM SR. Our objective is to digitise to a genuinely open, cross-platform audio and video
delivery format which could also include streaming in the future. File formats have yet to be confirmed, but access copies will be available both as complete titles, and as segments of three to five minutes.
Descriptive and technical metadata will be compiled and stored on Library systems and the FSOL website.
Who are the target audiences for this collection?
The key target audiences are researchers, teachers and students, and this project provides a wonderful opportunity to enable online access to a unique collection of material. It not only provides a corpus of pedagogical material for further academic research, but also acts as an illustrative tool for teaching and learning, and provides a fascinating public record of the history
of medical, surgical, and social care in the UK.
Are there any plans to expand this project in the short and long-term?
There are no plans to expand this particular project beyond the scope already set out, however more material will be made available online through a continuous cycle of acquisition by the department.
Where can I find further information?
Hopefully, this document will have provided answers to some of your questions. You can visit the Library website, the Wellcome Film FAQs, or contact the Moving Images and Sound Collection curators: misc@wellcome.ac.uk. Visit the
Film and Sound Online website for further details of their collections.
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