Canadian Archives and the Corporate Memory

Abstract

Publicly funded archival repositories in Canada lack the resources to cope with the enormous volume of records annually created by large corporations.Archivists writing about the preservation of business records have acknowledged this fact, and have concluded that companies should be encouraged to establish in-house corporate archives.'But are corporate archives the only realistic means of preserving business records?Preoccupied with the idea of corporate archives, North American archival literature has paid little attention to the issues of preserving the records of the wide range of small businesses which still constitute a substantial part of the contemporary business world, and of preserving records of companies that cease to exist.It is in these areas that Canada's public archival repositories have a role to play.Repositories in this country have broad mandates to acquire records, including business records, of cultural and historical importance to their respective communities.Unfortunately, most of the business records that have been acquired by archival institutions constitute small, fragmentary collections of doubtful value to researchers.To fulfill their mandates to preserve records documenting the various aspects of the culture and history of their communities, repositories should develop and implement programmes to acquire the records of small businesses within their regions on a more systematic basis.By examining their existing acquisition policies and the business records they have already acquired, repositories will be in a better position to develop effective strategies for preserving business records of value.Canadian public archival institutions have broad mandates.They not only receive the records of their respective governments, but also acquire personal papers and the records of private organizations:From their inception the federal and provincial archives have played a dual role: preserving the official records of their governments and seeking to preserve all records relevant to the history of their region.2Despite broad mandates, however, archivists interested in acquiring business records realize they have neither the manpower nor the space necessary to handle the vast amounts of records created by large companies.3In 1980, the Consultative Group on Canadian Archives echoed sentiments expressed by North American archivists O All rights reserved:

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