The Canadian Women Artists History Initiative (CWAHI) grew out of Concordia University Visual Arts librarian Melinda Reinhart’s intention to create an online bio/bibliography of women artists in Canada. Concordia Slide Librarian, Janice Anderson, and Concordia Professor Kristina Huneault joined the project, and for several years CWAHI continued to produce online content focusing on historical (born before 1925, now extended to 1930) Canadian women artists. The early birth year was chosen in order to avoid duplicating work already being done by other institutions. As time went by the idea of also creating and developing paper files was hatched and put into action. In this endeavor we were aided enormously by the generosity of other scholars who allowed us to photocopy their existing documents and create our own files. The files tended to grow in the direction of women painters of European descent, and it quickly became obvious that we needed to focus not only on marginalized groups of artists, but also on more diverse media. We then began to develop, and continue to focus, on such media as photography, craft, architecture and film and to prioritize work by non-European artists. The collection of artist files has grown to over 1500 files, some very small, some much larger.

The files have proven themselves useful to a significant number of researchers over the years, but as time has gone on, and as more and more material is available online it seems as if fewer and fewer people want to visit the physical source. Of course, Canada is a very large country, and to access a particular file might entail an insurmountable journey. We also get the occasional request from outside the country, and we’re happy to provide scans of files when that’s feasible. But we are now considering the idea that the paper file concept is obsolete and that our most useful next step would be to digitize all our files and put the material online. Our most recent conference in 2022 was attended by almost 700 people on Zoom, far more than could have been accommodated in person, and we subsequently became more enthusiastic about the accessibility and usability of digital sources. The majority of our files consist of photocopies from magazines and newspapers. Citing the source for each scan would create the bulk of the work – would it even be feasible? These are the questions we are currently asking ourselves.

Janice Anderson, Concordia University