Digital communication extended with archive

ABOUT half a million documents and photographs detailing the history of the UK’s role in the development of communications is to be digitised.

By The Newsroom

Published 18th Jan 2012, 06:00 BST

BT said its archive from the last 165 years includes adverts and technical documents as well details of the telephone installations at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

The photographs include the first telephone exchange in 1878, the Duke of Edinburgh making an early mobile phone call in 1955 and the Queen making the first automatic long-distance call from Bristol to Edinburgh in 1958.

Coventry University, in partnership with BT and The National Archives, has been awarded £745,000 by funding agency JISC to create a digitised online version of the archive.

BT’s heritage head David Hay said it was an “exciting” venture, adding: “It will use our combined technology and expertise to greatly enhance access, learning and preservation of the history of the world’s oldest communications company.”