'Missing episodes', or, the gaps in the memory of Doctor Who

[parrot_knight]

"...the total of missing episodes now stands at 106. The fact that so much of Doctor Who exists is a testament not only to fans’ determination but to the incompetence of the BBC; not only could they not manage to keep a proper archive, they couldn’t even manage to throw things away."

Jonathan Morris's Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition

Comments

[daniel_saunders]

With my fan and librarian hats on, I am naturally horrified by the archive purges, but with my historian's hat I can take a calmer view: TV was not seen as a durable medium, nor did cultural history have as much prominence as it does now. I suspect that in two hundred years historians will lament the short-sightedness of our generation for failing to accurately archive the vast social history resource that is the blogosphere. (On my librarianship course, I was told by the head of the British Library's digitization programme that the BL has been trying to archive a small, but representative slice of British websites each year, but I suspect it is like trying to carry an ocean with a sieve.)

[parrot_knight]

I agree with you about the blogosphere and indeed forums. Remember the loss of Outpost Gallifrey, though I hope it survives quietly and undisclosed in private collections somewhere.