UK Higher and Further Education institutions have enjoyed access to historical film resources provided in the BFI InView product up to August 2018. For mostly technical reasons the free access provided thanks to the licence negotiated by the Jisc has now terminated.
BFI have advised that “InView was originally built in Drupal 6 back in 2009 and this product has been maintained and hosted by BFI since then. As we’re beginning a digital transformation programme in September (which includes a formal review of our technology stack and digital portfolio) we have no plans to update the current InView platform to a later version. Unmaintained code means there is a possible security risk. From a content perspective, the streaming video was originally created in Flash which means it will not work on many devices now. The log in system was originally built to be integrated with Shibboleth but we are no longer actively updating or modifying this.”
BFI adds that “in December 2018, BFI will also be launching part of its BFI Player product in libraries – specifically, free archive videos – to widen access to the UK’s rich film and TV heritage. The content will come from the BFI’s National Archive as well as national, regional and cultural partners – and, over time, the new platform will show videos that are not available on BFI Player. The ambition is to then roll out this new digital platform to educational bodies. It is also possible that content which is currently in InView can be published into this new product.”
Unfortunately BFI are unable to provide at this stage exact timings for the above and when the InView content could be available to be moved into that new product.
If we obtain further information concerning the availability of new options for accessing the BFI film content we will update you. The link to the BFI InView has been removed from the Cambridge LibGuides Databases A-Z. If you are linking to it from any guide, or other web page, please check or remove your link accordingly.
Electronic Collection Management 