Laser Videodisc Technology - A Tool for Collections Management at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Cape Dorset is a community on Bafin Island in Canada's Northwest Territories. An art co-operative - the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative (W.B.E.C.) - was formed there in 1959 to encourage the production of drawings, prints, sculpture, and other handicrafts. The Co-operative purchases hundreds of drawings from artists annually and selects and translates some of these into prints for its yearly collection release. The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is a gallery in Kleinburg, just north of Toronto, dedicated to exhibiting, collecting and caring for 20th century Canadian Art including First Nations and Inuit Art. In 1987, the W.B.E.C. approached the McMichael to assist with the preservation and care of their collection. The Cooperative's archival collection itself consists of approximately 100,000 drawings, 3,000 prints and 100 works of sculpture. All have been created by artists in Cape Dorset within the period between 1957-1989. As an archive of an artistic community the collection is considered to hold both national and international significance. Laservideodisk technology made the capture and distribution of such an archive possible.