Westland

In 1983, Mike Halleran began producing and hosting a television series entitled Westland which aired on the Knowledge Network from 1984 to 2007. Later taken over by his son Terry Halleran, the series explored a broad range of environmental issues associated with forestry practices, fresh water fisheries, endangered species, natural resource management and ecosystem restoration in British Columbia.  The programs included extensive on-site footage and interviews with experts and various stakeholders.

In 2011, the UBC Library, with support from the Columbia Basin Trust and other community partners, acquired the Westland broadcast programs as well as an extensive video library of approximately 2,000 source tapes which are currently housed in the University Archives. Known collectively as the Halleran Video Collection these tapes provide an incredible wealth of information relating to natural resource management, environmentalism and sustainability in British Columbia.

Recognizing the importance of this material and to facilitate its use, the Library has digitized 195 of the programs broadcast as part of the Westland series.

The original source video tapes in U-Matic, Betacam and VHS formats were digitized to an MPEG-2 video stream and WAV audio stream. These were then transcoded to H.264/MPEG-4 for streaming on our digital asset content management system, CONTENTdm. The originals will be maintined as master files for preservation and/or any other future needs.