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Whistler: a People's History
Today I got a reminder of what a newcomer I still am to Whistler. As part of the 2009 Cultural Capitals of Canada program, the Whistler Museum and the Whistler Arts Council produced a DVD series, one of which is called “Whistler: A People’s History.” They were kind enough to donate copies of the whole series to the library, and I’ve been going through the process of cataloguing them for the collection.
There is a whole computer coding system for library catalogue records called MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloguing), and because of the complexity of the system, we purchase most of our catalogue records from vendors or get them from other libraries in Canada. These new DVDs are so local, though, that nobody else has them and I spent quite a while today writing the record up. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here’s the interesting part: in order to catalogue a videorecording properly, you have to watch the opening titles and the closing credits. The “primary source of information,” as all good cataloguers know, is not the cover or the label on the disc, but the actual projected image.
So I spent much of my day playing and pausing and transcribing and playing and pausing and transcribing. Because it’s a local production and Whistler residents make up the cast, I felt it was important to have every name from the performer list and “featured artist” credits as searchable names. There are 55 of them.
My next step was to check the National Library of Canada and the Library of Congress to see if any of the names had “authority” records, or proscribed formatting with dates or other details. It turns out that only six of the 55 (Bob Barnett, Steve Podborski, Bonny Makarewicz, Leslie Anthony, Ali Milner, and Janet Love Morrison) had records in either place, and five of these had dates of birth attached. There were a few others, notably Rob Boyd and Ross Rebagliati, who had possible matches but I couldn’t be sure.
This is where my newbie ignorance comes in. If I knew more about the history of Whistler, I would be able to make an educated guess as to whether or not our Ross Rebagliati compiled a CD called “Fullie Dialed Inn”in 1998, or if the Rob Boyd in the DVD is the Robert Boyd who published “On the Road to Nowhere.” I suspect someone out there knows and will inform me. I hope so.
In any case, the beginning and end of the DVD has me eager to bring it home and watch the whole thing. Maybe the answers will be in there.
Lauren Stara, Library Director