Finding my grandmother in the CBC archives

September 13, 2009 9:28 PM

How can I find recordings of my grandmother from when she was on CBC radio in the late 40s/early 50s?

My grandmother grew up in Winnipeg and went to college in Toronto before transferring to the University of Kentucky for their Radio and Television program (now Telecommunication, I guess). Before she moved to the States, she was on CBC radio programs (I'm not sure if they were national programs or on local affiliates, and I don't really know what kind of programs they were). I'd like to find out if any recordings of these programs exist, and how to get them if they do.

A few years ago I tried to contact someone at the CBC archives, but never got any response (I tried phone and email). Where should I look? What strategies should I use?

posted by ocherdraco to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Well, if I were in your shoes I would try writing a letter painting a picture with a few paragraphs personalizing your grandmother, describing what it was she did, and offer to pay CBC some figure like $200 for the time involved just to show you're serious and ask if it would be helpful to visit in person. It would also be useful to identify a few key people and try to write directly to them. Another idea might be to visit the local CBC affiliate and see if you can get someone there to help. I've worked a little bit in broadcast but not CBC or Canada and it was mostly in TV, so perhaps someone else has a better idea.
posted by crapmatic at 10:29 PM on September 13, 2009

Best answer: Phone [phone] and ask for Radio Archives. When they answer, ask one of of the librarians if he or she can help you.

Don't offer money; they can't accept it and it might make them feel uncomfortable. Try to persuade them that it would be really, really meaningful for you to get copies of the recordings. They definitely don't have the capacity to do this for everyone, so your best bet is to be really nice, and try to convince them that your circumstances are in some way special or unusual. If there is any historic importance to your request that'd help, or if the recordings will have any broader societal or public service use, past just you listening to them.

They can search for your grandmother by name in the logging system: they should be able to do it while you're on the phone. The difficult part will be, if they find a log, persuading them to dub it and mail it to you. If you get a tech-smart librarian, she or he may be able to e-mail you an mp3 (easier than cassette/disc!), but they will still need to request the tape and make the dub, which is frankly a pain.

Don't call the CBC Digital Archives project; that is a different thing; not the same as the radio archive library. Don't call the reference library; that is also different. If you have no luck with the archive library, try Audience Relations. If that doesn't work, try to find a friend of a friend who works at CBC: they can get it done for you. But for anyone to do it, it's a pain, and it's not a service CBC normally provides. So it's in your interest to be very very nice when making the request :-)
posted by Susan PG at 10:44 PM on September 13, 2009 [2 favorites]

(If you me-mail me, I can give you the name of a helpful librarian there. I don't want to post it publicly, but I'll give it you individually.)
posted by Susan PG at 10:46 PM on September 13, 2009

Response by poster: Fantastic. For what it's worth, I'm American (and in the US), myself (though my Dad is, as of April of this year, a Canadian citizen), so I don't have a local CBC affiliate.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:52 PM on September 13, 2009