But beyond our public service collections there's a large and growing mix of shows from BBC radio and television available to buy or access on a commercial basis - whether as physical products like CDs or Blu-rays or in digital-only formats - and we want to make it easy and intuitive for audiences to track down programmes that may no longer be offered via the BBC itself but are available elsewhere. A question many TV producers have heard from viewers is, "Can I get that on DVD?".

With that in mind, we're launching today a number of improvements to the BBC Online feature previously known as Buyer's Guide. If you've used this before, you'll know that it provides a link from selected programme pages on BBC Online to retailers who offer purchasable copies of the relevant programme.

So far this has been almost entirely restricted to audiobooks based on BBC Radio shows, but we're now extending it to include DVD and Blu-Ray editions of our TV programmes as well. As of today you should find links from selected TV programme pages to around 350 different products from a variety of retailers, and the range will grow steadily from now on. To begin with we're focussing on programmes that have recently been broadcast, but over time we'll include a wider selection of older programmes.

We're also changing the name to Commercial Availability: we think this describes more clearly what the feature is there to do. The look and feel has evolved too, to fit with the new overall design of BBC Online.

In Delivering Quality First we re-stated the BBC's determination to improve audiences' access to and engagement with our programmes - past, present and future - whether they're available on the BBC website or elsewhere, and today's changes represent another step in that direction. We hope you find them useful.

Roly Keating is Director of Archive Content and Executive Editor of BBC Online

• Frequently Asked Questions about Commercial Availability

It seems like only last week that I was writing here about what a busy year this is proving to be for archives. Well, here we are again - this time to celebrate the launch of BBC Four's first online Collection of classic television programmes from the archive. It's the beginning for us of a whole new way of thinking about the relationship between the immediacy and ephemerality of broadcast TV and the permanent, connected medium of the web.

If you've seen the trails on air you'll probably know that Army: A Very British Institution is the latest of BBC Four's distinctive thematic seasons: in this case a mix of brand new documentaries and series such as Sandhurst that in different ways explore the institutional culture of the Army. This isn't the raw frontline fighting captured so dramatically in BBC Three's Our War and other recent films, but rather the fascinating, intangible realm of regimental tradition and values that gives the British Army a character unlike any other in the world.

It's the sheer richness of this social history that made Richard Klein and his team choose this season to launch what will be an ever-expanding series of thematic online collections from the archive. Of course, from its very beginnings as a channel BBC Four has always been a gateway to the archive. The Timeshift strand - now into its tenth year - has long specialised in plundering the archives to tell resonant tales of social change. And the big seasons - from The Sixties to The North - have often scheduled archive gems alongside the new commissions.

What's different now is that the channel has an official remit to extend its knowledge and passion for the archive into the internet age. As I reported here in February, the channel's Service Licence has been amended to allow it to curate and publish archive content permanently online, alongside and complementing its broadcast output. It means that from now on BBC Four's major seasons - the products of many months or even years of planning and preparation - will have the chance to leave a lasting legacy on the web for future audiences to explore and enjoy.

In the case of Army: A Very British Institution that means a chance to bring back to modern viewers some remarkable programme content, much of it observational documentary footage which hasn't seen the light of day since first broadcast. There's far more there than we could ever fit into a linear schedule - but for anyone with a personal or family interest in the regimental life of the Army over the past fifty years this is a unique resource. See Mark Urban's introduction for a taste of what's included, and what it tells us about how army life has changed over many decades.

Of course, the BBC archive is vast, and for every programme we make available there will be hundreds that we haven't. One of the factors we have to take into consideration when we decide what to release is what rights we own - not every programme belongs to the BBC in its entirety for all time. Often a decision will have been taken at the time to acquire rights to broadcast a programme for a more limited time, at a lower cost to the licence fee payer. In that spirit, focusing on the wealth of programmes we do own offers the best value.

If putting this together has meant a new way of working for the programming teams on the channel, it's also been a new challenge for the Online teams, who - as Ralph Rivera posted here a couple of months ago - are on a journey to transform our online offer from a series of disparate websites into 'one service' on the web that connects all the BBC's services, content and programmes into an increasingly seamless online experience. In this case, that's meant learning from the best of our original Archive pages - whose content will over time migrate to the new format - and blending it seamlessly with the functionality audiences are familiar with from iPlayer.

This is just one of the ways in which we're determined to make it easier for all of us to access and enjoy the riches of archive content. It's not just about making BBC Online itself more coherent and easier to use. It's also about us getting much better at linking up to relevant content and archive material elsewhere on the web - more on that in a few weeks' time.

Roly Keating is Director of Archive Content at the BBC

• Roly wrote about using archive content as a kind of time machine here on the blog earlier this month.
• There's a new homepage for BBC Four's archive collections. It will evolve as more are added.
• The picture is a still from 'My Friends Think I'm Mad', a 1968 documentary about a cadet in the Royal Armoured Corps and part of the new BBC Four collection.

2011 is turning out to be an important year for archives - and not just the BBC's. Earlier in the year I wrote here about the change in some our service licences that will allow more and more selections from the BBC's programme library to be published freely and permanently on the web. Radio 4 listeners are already enjoying the benefits: if you haven't checked out the addictive archive of Desert Island Discs please go there now (though do come back). And later this month BBC Four will be launching the first of its own online collections from the TV archive - more on that soon.

Big things have been happening behind the scenes too. Last month, as John Linwood explained here, we opened the BBC's new state-of-the-art archive store at Perivale, which will house and protect the core of our archive for many years to come. Meanwhile the British Film Institute unveiled its remarkable new building in Gaydon in Warwickshire - a high-tech wonder on the site of a former nuclear bunker which will hold more than 450,000 cans of film from the BFI's collection, including highly flammable and unstable nitrate.

These things aren't happening in isolation. When we set out our archive vision two years ago we were determined to work as closely as possible with other great public archives, such as the BFI. The Screen Heritage UK programme that has funded Gaydon and other UK initiatives over the last few years is underpinned by many of the same ideals that have shaped our own archive strategy. In both cases it's not just about preservation or even digitisation, vital as they are. It's about working together across the whole sector to set common standards for search and discoverability. And it's also about finding new ways to make archives of all kinds more visible, accessible and enjoyable for audiences.

That's where projects like Reel History of Britain are so timely. Starting tonight and then every weeknight at 6.30, this is a new 20-part series presented by Melvyn Bragg and commissioned by Liam Keelen for BBC Two Daytime. The idea is so simple it's a surprise no-one's done it quite this way before: assemble a rich library of material from different regions on specific themes, and take it round the country in a mobile cinema to show it to the people who have the closest connection to it. From the fishing industry in Great Yarmouth to the clubs of Soho, what emerges is an informal and frequently touching social history of the UK.

The whole project has been produced in partnership with the BFI and with the support of many other national and regional film archives, and is a great example of how digital media is making it easier than ever for public organisations to share assets and make connections. In this case, for instance, our website for the series will link directly to the BFI's, where you'll be able to view the original, full-length versions of many of the films featured in the series. And we'll be using the red button to show a selection of the full-length titles from the BFI directly after the main transmission - so if you see a glimpe of something fascinating in the show chances are you'll have the chance to explore it in more detail afterwards.

At its best - carefully selected, fully restored, put in the right context - archive footage can be the closest any of us will get to time travel. Suddenly, with a shock of recognition, a world we thought was lost opens up in front of our eyes. That's a sensation Reel History of Britain offers episode after episode: we hope you enjoy it.

Roly Keating is Director of Archive Content at the BBC

• The first episode of The Reel History of Britain is on BBC Two at 1830 this evening. Programme information (and a preview clip) on the Reel History of Britain web site.
• The picture shows Melvyn Bragg with the remarkable Reel History bus. More about it on the web site.

Something happened today that should interest anyone who thinks the BBC's archives should be more easily accessible.

Alongside the BBC Trust's announcements about the Service Licence reviews of Radio 3 and Radio 4 came a new approval: an amendment to those two networks' Service Licences – and that of BBC Four – that allows all three the ability to offer programming on-demand for an unlimited period after broadcast.  There'll also be an amendment to BBC Online's licence to reflect the new permissions.

What it means is that BBC for the first time has a clear, defined remit to start building a 'permanent collection' of some of its best programmes for free online access by anyone in the UK now and in the future.

That word 'defined' is important: this isn't about all programmes, on all channels.  Many of the BBC's most commercially popular titles and archive classics are of course available on DVD, or via pay-TV channels or paid downloads, and long may they continue to be so.

But today's announcement confirms that in the online age the task of making more of the wealth of its fantastic archives easily accessible to audiences is an inseparable part of the BBC's mission as a public service broadcaster.  That's why the new vision for BBC Online which we announced last week put archive discovery at the heart of its design.

It's also why we've chosen these three much-loved networks and channels to shape the offer.  All three are well-known to their audiences for their intelligent use of material from the archives, whether it's Radio 4's Archive Hour linking past and present with topical acuity (can't wait to hear their Rupert Murdoch birthday celebration scheduled for 8th March), or BBC Four, with its smart scheduling of archive rarities alongside its highest-profile new shows. Who'd have imagined that a 1963 episode of This is Your Life with Hattie Jacques would grab 1.2 million viewers when it was shown last month?
 
So how would it all work?  Luckily you don't have to look far or wait long to get a sense of the possibilities.

Tomorrow night BBC Four launch their Focus on Sculpture season, coinciding with a big new exhibition of British sculpture at the Royal Academy in London.  It's a great example of how they're already experimenting with using collections of online and on-demand archive to support some of their theme seasons and big broadcast events. 

Press Red Button on digital TV any time during the season and you'll be offered a curated selection of relevant archive content, starting with BBC Two's 1998 Henry Moore biography Carving a Reputation.  Go to BBC Online's Archive website and you'll find a collection of newly-cleared and digitised sculpture programming that's been put together to enhance the season.  And if you go along in person to the Royal Academy itself any Friday evening for the next two months you can see BBC archive highlights on the big screen – a classic case of how a more open approach to the archive stimulates new kinds of partnerships, to everyone's benefit.

At the moment these are all relatively separate experiences, especially online – you have to put in quite a lot of work to make the connections.  But as we build the new-look BBC Online you'll gradually see the currently separate websites for iPlayer, TV channels, programmes and archive coming together into a single environment that's simple to explore and enjoy.  And on internet-connected TVs we intend to make it as easy as possible to switch from live viewing of BBC Four to a menu of relevant on-demand archive, ready to play on your main TV screen.

For the two radio networks the basic principles are the same but the editorial experience will be more focussed on favourite long-running strands.  Radio 4's In Our Time has led the way – the whole back-catalogue of the series is already available on-demand and every new episode enriches the mix.  Expect to see more on BBC Radio's archive plans from Tim Davie and his team in due course.

These channel and network brands will act as the gateway to the permanent collection and will bring all their editorial flair to the task of selecting what goes into it.  But that's just the beginning of the story. 

Once published every one of these programmes will become part of a standing resource at the heart of BBC Online, linkable to by others inside and outside the BBC, re-usable by future producers and editors for new propositions as yet undreamt of, and discoverable through open search by anyone pursuing an interest in the topic of the programme.  And as media becomes ever more social, individuals will find their own personal treasures in the collection, and popularise them among their friends and networks.

The current Archive website will remain live while content is migrated into the new TV & iPlayer and Radio & Music products on BBC Online.  The wealth and range of what's already been built up over the last few years – cleared and selected within the limited permissions and rights frameworks we've had to date – is a tribute to the pioneering work of Julie Rowbotham and her team.  They've laid the groundwork for the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

In Putting Quality First last year we set out a vision of "opening the BBC's current and future programme library", with a permanent archive of BBC programming available online "as part of a large and growing set of public archives made available by UK institutions."  As of today we have the green light to start making that vision a reality.

Roly Keating is the Director of Archive Content

The collection includes a radio interview with Virginia Woolf from 1937, an astonishingly erudite encounter between Iris Murdoch and Frank Kermode from 1965 and a 2009 interview with Zadie Smith, and offers a remarkable insight into the way writers think and the ways they have been represented by the BBC over the years.

It is the latest in a series of collections that includes stories from survivors of the sinking of the Titanic, the moon landings, British steam trains and the documents behind the creation of Doctor Who.

Some of the archive selections we publish are linked to significant anniversaries, like the loss of the Titanic, but this collection was triggered by the research done for In Their Own Words, the BBC series on writers that is being broadcast this week on BBC Four.

It offers viewers an opportunity to listen to the full versions of the interviews used in the programmes, something that would have been impossible for us to do before the advent of the internet, and shows very clearly how linear programming and non-linear access to material can complement each other, with well-chosen extracts used on air while the full-length originals are made available on the web.

I think it also offers an excellent model for how the BBC can ensure that the archive material we publish reaches its intended audience, with BBC Four curating the raw material that goes into its programmes, offering a context and providing - through the programme itself - an excellent introduction to the material that is available to be explored online.

Putting historically important material online is one of the most significant things that we're offering as we open up the BBC archive, but even that is scratching the surface.

The BBC's record doesn't just include programmes or the raw material that went to make programmes. There are photographs, props, costumes and millions of documents ranging from scripts to contracts to letters from the many people who have worked with the BBC over the years.  Some are historically significant, and we want to curate them and make them available. Others may matter only to one person or one family, but they should still be discoverable.

And of course the BBC archive, rich and wonderful though it is, is only one way of looking at our shared history. We are working closely with other cultural institutions like the British Library, British Museum, Arts Council England and of course the British Film Institute in order to harness emerging digital technologies and ensure that as we all make material available online we do so in ways that work together. 

We want to make sure that a search for 'Kingsley Amis' finds the material from many different archives and collections, not just the interviews on 'In Their Own Words', and we are working with our partners to ensure that we can all discover, access and engage with archive material, important collections and contemporary culture in a digital public space that is open to everyone.

This will make the internet more valuable for every one of us, and may motivate more people to go online as they realise what is out there for them.  We also think that it will create opportunities for commercial development and help to fuel the creative economy, just as the invention of videotape and then DVD created a new market for BBC programmes, one that was not envisaged when television was invented.

If you want to find out more about the BBC Archive, my colleagues Adrian Williams and Richard Wright have been blogging about their work and all three of us have been interviewed for this week's Guardian Technology podcast.

Roly Keating is Director of Archive Content

And on TV the BBC is about to broadcast a programme now generally considered to be the UK's first ever television arts documentary. John Read's half-hour film portrait of Henry Moore pointed the way for all of us who've ever tried to capture a contemporary artist on camera - check out John Wyver's excellent blog on Read to find out just how pioneering and influential this film is.

Now, thanks to the enlightened partnership of the Henry Moore Foundation, working with Tate Britain, all of Read's six films on Moore, along with other BBC documentaries, interviews and reports made over nearly five decades, have been digitised and released online, to coincide with - what else? - a major new Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain. In due course this treasure-trove of material will be available for use by other galleries across the UK.

There is rare footage of Moore at work in his studio, following the process from early sketches to final creation. If you've ever seen the huge Reclining Figure that stands today outside the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, its exact moment of birth, is captured on camera.

We see Moore talking to John Freeman in the legendary interview series Face to Face. We see him looking back on the extraordinary wartime images he made of Londoners sheltering underground from the Blitz. Then comes Moore in old age, talking one last time on camera to Read and reflecting on an epic career in art.

Oh, and there's, er, Richard Bacon, helping to move a mighty Moore sculpture and introducing the artist's work to a new generation on Blue Peter in the late 1990s. All the variety of the BBC is here, in the survey of a single life.

I'm constantly amazed at the sheer range and depth of the BBC Archive. Unlocking its full riches could take a lifetime, but exciting collaborations like this, with partners who care about enriching the digital public space, show what's possible.

When the BBC's Director-General Mark Thompson and the British Library's Chief Executive Lynne Brindley add their signatures later today to a Memorandum of Understanding, it'll mark a major new chapter in the relationship between these two remarkable and very British institutions.

Some may wonder why a broadcaster and a library are even talking to each other, let alone committing to share strategies and develop joint projects.

But the truth is that the two organisations have more in common than you might think. The BL, for instance, has incredibly rich audio-visual holdings, including of course the National Sound Archive (which contains some 100,000 BBC recordings). The BBC, on the other hand, has a massive written archive, which is only just beginning to reveal its riches to the public. Our Information and Archive teams have worked with BL colleagues on and off for years, and in many ways this is an old friendship with deep roots.

What's changed is the sheer scale of joint opportunity - and challenge - opened up by the prospect of a digitally connected UK. As custodians of two very different parts of the national heritage, we find ourselves asking some strikingly similar questions.

Some of these questions are mind-boggling for those of us who grew up in the comforting landscape of traditional broadcasting. But we know we have to tackle them, if we want to secure and protect a vibrant, accessible public cultural space at the heart of the UK's digital landscape. It's a formidable task, and not one that any single organisation can tackle by itself.

That's why - alongside other key partnerships in this space such as the BFI, The National Archives and the Arts Council of England - the alliance with Lynne Brindley and her teams feels so timely and so full of potential.

And that's why the piece of paper being signed today might just find itself pored over by the archivists of the future - though presumably they'll be examining a scanned and digitised version rather than the fragile paper original!