BBC North West Regional News Material 1973-1986: Search Help
This page provides guidance about searching the BBC NW Documentaries catalogue. Advice is given on how to take your enquiry further, having searched the catalogue.
Keyword Search
If you have a particular subject, person or place of interest you can conduct a keyword search by entering relevant terms or a key phrase, such as 'trams' or 'manchester airport', in the keywords box. This will search the individual news item descriptions. You can enter a single term for a broad search, or several words to narrow your search down. If too many results are returned for you to look through, use the 'Back' button in your browser to return to the keyword box and add another relevant word to refine your search.
For Example:
The keyword football returned too many results for you to look through, so you could return to the keyword box and enter football manchester united to limit your search to footage of a particular team.
If your search is unsuccessful, or has too few hits, try thinking of alternative words, e.g., instead of the word seaside, try beaches or seafront. It is also helpful to use concrete words rather than abstract terms, e.g., for images conveying 'love', try entering terms such as weddings or dancing.
It is also helpful to use concrete words rather than abstract terms, e.g., for images conveying 'love', try entering terms such as "weddings" or "dancing"
Searching by Transmission Date/Day
If you want a specific Look North news programme, the catalogue can be searched by date of transmission by entering the date in dd/mm/yy format in the left-hand box. You can also search for a date range by placing a second date in dd/mm/yy format in the right-hand box, for example 01/12/75 (box 1) and 31/12/75 (box 2) would bring up every date for which we have news film in December 1975. The catalogue can also be searched by day of transmission, for example if you were interested in only news items that were broadcast at the start of each week, you could limit your search to Mondays.
Key to Television Production Terms Used
GVs - general views OOV - out of vision (to describe reporters) sepmag - separate magnetic - when the sound is on a separate roll of magnetic track commag - combined magnetic - when the sound is integrated with the film mute - no sound available or survived but sound did exist (no sound intended = silent) VT - videotape 1/RNW/A210/5 - programme identification number OB - outside broadcast LMCR - lightweight mobile control room SNF - staff no fee (relating to reporters)
How to take your enquiry further
If, having searched the online catalogue, you would like to take your enquiry further, it is important to note the film numbers of the titles in which you are interested. This can be found when looking at the record detail for a title. Your enquiry can be submitted or by contacting a member of our access team by telephone 0161-247 3097. For more information see our Comments and Enquiries page.