Canadian Pop Culture as a matter of historical record

The University of Toronto's Media Commons' Archive is Canada's home for popular culture and mass-media archival records and documents; everything from television and film productions, journalists and great journalistic achievements, recording studios and rare vinyl records, media production companies, advertising companies and prolific members of this vast Canadian media culture are all represented there in one form or another.

To my understanding, there have been a few direct influences that have come from the archival and cultural fabric of Canada which can be identified as the reason this archive exists at all. The proliferation of a/v records and documents (which is inherent to the nature of a/v materials) coupled with technology's endless appetite for discovering the next market-swaying recording format, has resulted in archival collections which are physically large with respect to box count or surviving record. Sadly, there is never enough room to house this material indefinitely; especially when the statistics on access are less than ideal.

The Canadian government has slowed its acquisitions to a near standstill, while in the meantime, Canadian popular culture is still producing valuable, culturally-reflective products. The CBC as well has moved away from long-term storage of original a/v document formats: their current goal is to digitize everything they can in their storage in order to reduce its size, and ultimately the rent they are paying (or inversely to regain their own precious real estate which is dedicated to helping old archival records collect dust).

The Media Commons' Archive is actively going after archival material, but their real estate can't last forever. In the meantime, there are one or two collections which come to mind as fitting nowhere in any of the preceding collecting (or digitizing and destroying) mandates. These collections would be those that are not old enough to be considered historically or culturally significant; archival materials generally have to be at the very least 3-5 years old before they can be assessed to have significant, lasting impact on Canadian culture. There are also those collections which fall between the collection mandate cracks because they are in part produced by CBC, which is government funded (and we've already discussed the current situation there), or by American broadcasting/production/distribution companies, such as Show Time.

In the meantime, valuable collections are ... where? That's really the crux of the problem, isn't it? Media magnates are highly incestuous: pre-distribution copies of productions in whole or part are frequently passed around between companies for a variety of reasons, resulting in the existence of these documents in disparate ways and numbers, sprinkled throughout Canadian recorded history. But where are the bulk of these collections that parented these odd orphaned records? And what are the plans of those who currently are responsible for those records?

The two collections I have in mind while I monologue these concerns.... "Kenny v Spenny" and "Trailer Park Boys". Individually, you may love, hate or have never heard of these two productions. But, nationally and arguably more significantly internationally, these two productions have exposed contemporary Canadian popular culture across the globe. And yet, in light of the current collecting mandates, acquisition complexities and cultural appraisal methodologies, I do wonder what will be available for research and study in 100 years, when the mass-market dvds are digital leftovers and the 'how' and 'why' become of paramount significance.