Use of Material

With very few exceptions the use of all the BBC Popular Music Library’s material is confined to BBC staff for programme production and broadcasting. The bulk of the material is still in copyright. The BBC has various agreements with various interested bodies such as the Music Publishers Association by which it agrees not to supply any material to persons or organisations outside of the corporation. Manuscript commissioned arrangements are hired to known individuals or to broadcasting organisations and official bodies provided the agreement of the arrangers involved has been obtained.

The main users of the bulk of the stock are BBC programme makers and the demand for material will vary according to the programme. The stock of arrangements is used by the various BBC orchestras on an ongoing basis by which the usual modern musical tastes are catered for. Sometimes a special programme is created in which a particular musical style or are may be required. It is necessary to be able to identify the required music in stock and retrieve it with the minimum effort: hence the usefulness of file collections and analytical indexes pertaining to specialised subjects. This also applies to research enquiries where information on songs of a particular era or year, artist or band or any other specialised case may have to be pinpointed. Information is often sought on chart success for a particular month or year and all this information must be readily to hand.