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.

The scenario so far: UC Santa Cruz has received a grant that is to be used to focus digitization efforts on their newly acquired collection: The Grateful Dead Archive.

At first blush, this is pure excitement. Possibilities seem endless. Original sound recordings that have never before been migrated from their original format that will finally enjoy playtime to whatever audience is available through digital information highways. On second thought, and after a little research, boundaries appear out of nowhere and constraints become a bit more than prevalent.

For example:

1) The Internet Archive already has an extensive listing of Grateful Dead material that is freely available to anyone with an internet connection. Thus the question becomes, what is there in UCSC's collection which is not already available via the Internet Archive? Perhaps more to the point, how does anyone get an idea of the differences in unique audio records without getting to look at the listing?

2) If UCSC's collection contains duplicates of the IA collection, how can the UCSC material be presented in way that brings more traffic to UCSC's site, and equally more research traffic to the UCSC archive in its totality. Would a comparison between proposed metadata and that metadata which is used by IA bring to light enough discrepancies that would warrant an entire digitization project? Aren't the funds being geared towards digitization, and not data entry? Yes, we're dealing with unique material; that doesn't mean a highly qualified, expertly skilled information professional will be needed for the entire duration of the project, ... or does it?

Without delving too deeply into related material, these are the 'shoot from the hip' reactions. Time for a little further investigation.

Re-visiting an old thought

This is an article abstract that a colleague and I wrote together almost one year ago, in an effort to get our perspective published in a special printing of Archivaria, which was to be focusing on Queer Archives. To date, nothing more has been done with this article abstract. All that this abstract represents are the thoughts and casual debates between two Information Professionals (one an archivist, the other a librarian) who happen to be very passionate about concepts of scholarship and the definitions of pornography; and the overlap between the two.

In the history of archival scholarship, numerous studies have focused on the specific function records and documents in society, such as medical records, legal dockets and architectural drawings; however there are no equivalent studies in quantity or breadth that focus on sex – those documents which are created to record the act of, the discussions about or social perspectives on sex and sexuality. This article focuses on the relationship between archival theory and practice and pornography.

We begin with an examination of available archival scholarly research focusing on alternative sexualities within mainstream sexual studies; then note the differences in primary source materials available for both alternative (LGBT, etc.) sexualities and mainstream sexualities (specifically in terms of quantity, accessibility, and quality of resources). This leads to an examination of archival theory and practice in relation to what are considered erotic or pornographic records and materials, which are often not recognized as significant cultural artefacts in their own right, and thus may be removed from a fond or collection as an ‘irrelevance’.

We will demonstrate that there are inconsistencies in archival values and practice by examining a sexually explicit collection. Our discussion thus focuses on the ways in which pornographic materials, and by proxy, alternative sexual records (LGBT, BD/SM, etc) are assessed, appraised, and made accessible within archives, and how such materials are addressed by current archival theory. The collection in question is the Max Allen collection, which is owned by the Center for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. We will discuss the nature of the collection with respect to archival science/theory; examine the history of the collection; and look at the acquisition of the collection.

The collection presents a number of interesting contradictions such as: the paradox between the potential for pornographic material to be the most prevalent form of record creating genre while being the least prevalent form of record keeping genre with respect to a society’s cultural and heritage institutions. The collection also presents a number of commonalities between archival studies and sexual studies such as the fact that both scholarly fields have a strong sense of marginalization within democratic societies, albeit for vastly different reasons. By this method of analyzing differences and similarities, the article exposes the censorship and bias that affects pornographic collections (for example, the classification of materials as “pornography” generally stigmatizes them, and thus equates them with records of no redeemable value).

Finally, the article reaches two conclusions: First, that the potential for primary resource research in the field of queer studies would be positively affected by re-examination of how pornographic materials or sexually explicit materials should be viewed as cultural materials in their own right allowing sexuality studies to occur within a context – not as an isolated factor; and second, with respect to sexual diversity studies, and thus queer studies, there is a pressing need for further archival scholarly research into stated values of context, democracy, and uniqueness.

The MMORPG and Me.

Argument:
An MMO RPG is a strong contemporary example of a library, archive (and museum?) and IS coming together to create a universe within which a user operates & interacts with both the content and other users to create a unique experience grounded in a functioning universe with its own set of rules, ethics, moral codes, vocabularies, languages and forms of personal expression.

And:
We know this model works/functions in a concrete example: there are "cultural centers" which incorporate a library, archive and museum all in the same physical building in order that the activities of one "institution" are supported by (or support) the activities of one or both of the other two.

Question:
To what extent does the model actually work in real life? Are there statistics that support the argument that this model is better than the stand alone version of an archive, library or museum?

Question:
In what ways can a study of an MMO RPG through the lens of an information professional offer new perspectives on fairly old concepts of information management, i.e. librarianship and archiving. (N.B. this assumes that the only real advances in the management of information in libraries and archives (and museums?) has been the implementation of database systems, both relational and 'flat file', which alone have arguable positive influences on how any of these institutions functions within the breadth of society. Example: as the book ceases to be physical and continues to move toward the digital, how are libraries dealing with new opportunities, if they even know they exist? Could MMO RPGs offer perspectives that would enable the understanding of new opportunities?)

Archival irony - pt 1

Digital is everywhere. The book is no longer a physical object, and print, while not yet dead (imagines a faint British accent crying out "I'm not dead yet! I'm gettin' bettah!") has most definitely seen better days. Where does the future of archives fit into all this mess?

On the one side, global economies are in flux which means old markets have to be streamlined and re-vamped, while new markets have to be discovered and allowed blossoming time. Niche markets are where archives are headed, whether they realize it or not. Film archives, photograph archives, digital archives, culturally/ethnically/religously/genre-oriented archives... utilizing one central concept as a source of strength is certainly a reasonable marketing stragety.

Consider, though, how each and every archive operates, in one way or another, completely independantly from all the rest. The most important individualizing characteristic: budget. "Its our money, ergo we'll spend it how and where we like." This is a reasonable statement.

And yet, I am left wondering, what happens to all of the unifying historical information and data that is segregated and celled in separate locations, with separate governing policies, separated by staff, by priviledge, and by geography.

Within the history of archival arrangement - photography has lead an interesting life. When photographic documents were first beginning to be treated seriously as a readable document, the archival profession was not all in agreement as to how these new records should be dealt with. Where would they be stored? Their physical and chemical make-up was identified to be different enough from textual documents, as were the skills needed to read/interact with these documents. These differences were enough to warrant strong arguments for different preservation tactics and methodologies.

Due to this argument, a trend developed wherein all material that was identified as photographic in nature was physically separated from its context and surrounding content, and placed within the context of other similar documents. Arguments were very strong from within the professional, practicing community that photographic documents must be treated with the same attention and care and resources as textual material; unfortunately the argument at the time strongly favoured physical separation with no consideration to intellectual control. In reflection, best practices and standards for archives now incorporate a sensibility for the duality of that paradigm: upholding format-based preservation duties means a constant awareness for and maintenance of the original context.

Reflecting now upon that approach, I am curious how some of the same patterns will emerge, and how will they affect efforts to approach new media, in particular video games, such as mmorpg's. By approaching the format as something that is 'new' instead of approaching an evolving technology with a particular sensibility for previous reactions to new or evolving technologies, what patterns are going re-emerge that the archival community has previously encountered, analyzed and ... shelved?

By approaching a new media as though it is 'different' or 'segregated' and therefore requires whole new paradigms and critical analyses, is a dis-service being done to previous scholarly work as well as to future archival holdings?

Dungeons and Dragons archive?

I've recently stumbled across the open-source System Reference Documents for v3.5 DnD. After the recent lecture I attended at my Alma Mater Studorium (see last post), this has really got my thinking. DnD is a paper-based game, always has been. Where is the DnD archive? What has the DnD archive done to preserve internet-based documents?

(note: this was drafted in February 2009)