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CBC ARCHIVES Past, Present and Future What's the lifespan of a radio broadcast or a television show after it leaves the air? A day? An hour? A second? To most people, radio and TV programming is instant and disposable. A program comes, a program goes, another takes its place. Not so in CBC Archives. Here, more than seven decades of CBC radio and television history lives on - in millions of discs, films, tapes, photographs, paper records and electronic databases. A Visit to the Archives Preservation and Restoration Formats Equipment The Archives Project The Archives at Work Meet the Archives Staff Glossary And what a collection. It's hard to imagine anything more valuable as a programming resource or cultural artifact. From live news and documentaries, to state funerals, sports championships and kids TV, the sum of this content is a rich, irreplaceable record of Canada's national heritage. And with each day's broadcasts, the story grows. Enter the archives staff. It's their job to catalogue, preserve and make this material available for reuse or rebroadcast - to programmers inside the CBC and to broadcasters, filmmakers and other institutions across Canada and around the world. It wasn't always this way. In the CBC's early years archives were not a priority, as few people thought the items would have long-term value. Then slowly, that began to change. People realized the material's worth. New technologies made production cheaper and storage easier. Computer systems made it possible to track, manage and provide ready-access to the collection. Today, CBC Archives have come into their own. And Canadians are that much richer for it. Take your own virtual visit of CBC Archives: A Visit to the Archives: Welcome to the sights and sounds of Canada's past Preservation and Restoration: Magic that's performed to revive old recordings Formats: From ancient acetate disks to digital technology, they're all here Equipment: Cameras, mics, kinescopes, and yes, an oven to "bake" tapes The Archives Project: How thousands of hours of Canada's past were saved The Archives at Work: Buried treasures ­ and sales around the world Meet the Archives Staff: They preserve our past ­ even if it means working in a fridge Glossary: Don't know what a "squealer" is? Come here to find out!     Next page: A Visit to the Archives