The Digital Curation of Broadcasting Archives at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Curation Culture and Evaluative Practice by Asen O. Ivanov A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Information University of Toronto © Copyright by Asen O. Ivanov 2019 The Digital Curation of Broadcasting Archives at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Curation Culture and Evaluative Practice Asen O. Ivanov Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Information University of Toronto 2019 Abstract Digital curation scholarship has become interested in how technical and computational processes and systems intersect with human and social factors in digital curation practices across curation domains. This dissertation contributes to this knowledge by examining the digital curation of broadcasting news archives, a considerable but underexplored curation domain. The study is based on participant observation and interview data collected at the news archive of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The data is analyzed using a practice theory approach that combines social, material, and cultural theoretical perspectives. Specifically, the dissertation examines how archivists at the CBC evaluate and enrich information in the context of their daily work, and it describes the institutional, organizational, and technological elements constitutive of this context. The analysis reveals how the CBC’s transformation from analogue to digital infrastructure has redefined the organizational roles and the boundaries of expertise at the news archive. It further reveals how the CBC’s institutional identity sets the goals of digital curation and how digital broadcasting systems are adapted to reflect preestablished procedural and symbolic traditions of work. Lastly, the dissertation examines the constitutive rules and ii heuristics of evaluation at the news archive and finds that evaluative practices are consequential during all stages of the curation lifecycle but are particularly salient at the stages of acquisition (when value is established), cataloguing (when value is enriched), and reuse (when value is negotiated to fit into a new context). Based on these findings two arguments are formulated. It is argued, first, that aside from being supported by socio-technical systems, digital curation practices are also supported by cultural systems. These cultural systems sustain collective action and situated cognition by providing vocabularies of motives and strategies for action. They are shaped by normative institutional frameworks, transmitted through material artifacts, and refracted through subjective interpretations. Second, it is argued that evaluative practices are an integral part of digital curation and a prerequisite for enhancing the value of data and digital materials. They are interwoven with social and cultural processes, used in adaptive ways, and difficult to formalize, as such they will vary across curation domains and practice contexts. iii Acknowledgments The completion of a PhD dissertation is a challenging and self-absorbing process. I am deeply indebted to many teachers and peers whose direction and encouragement helped me through this process. First, I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Costis Dallas, who guided me on a long intellectual journey. His vast knowledge and academic acumen kept me on the right track, while his innovative research on digital curation help define the way I think and write about the topic. Equally important has been the contribution of my committee members Professor Fiorella Foscarini and Professor Irina D. Mihalache. Fiorella has been instrumental in shaping my understanding of archival science and helping me find new ways to tackle old questions in this long-standing body of knowledge; her work on information culture has been equally impactful on the way I think about the relationship between culture, practice, and information. Likewise, Irina introduced me to a range of debates in media, communication, and cultural studies and provided expert guidance on understanding the nature of cultural institutions and the dynamics of the work that takes place therein. I could not have asked for a better committee, and I value deeply the efforts and dedication you all put into my education. I am deeply grateful to my external reviewers, Professors Elizabeth Yakel and Chun Wei Choo. Your thoughtful comments contributed greatly to my dissertation, but just as importantly, provided me with new perspectives for thinking about the future of my research. I also wish to thank the Faculty of Information for providing a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment for my research and that of so many others. It has been a privilege to be able to interact with and learn from Professors Seamus Ross, Lynne C. Howarth, Heather MacNeil, Wendy Duff, Christoph Becker, Jenna Hartel, Nadia Caidi, Siobhan Stevenson, Rhonda McEwen, Alan Galey, Matt Ratto, Brian Cantwell Smith, and Leslie Regan Shade. A special thank you to Professor Kelly Lyons, who was my academic mentor for the first year of my degree and helped me define my research interests. I would be remiss not to thank all the administrative staff of the Faculty of Information, and especially Christine Chan, who has always been the first point of contact for anything administrative and so helpful. Special thanks also to the InForum librarians Kathleen Scheaffer, Nalini K. Singh, and Elisa Sze. iv I owe much to my peers at the Faculty of Information Elysia Guzik, Hervé Saint-Louis, Mark Sedore, Matthew Wells, Gabby Resch, Daniel Southwick, Chaya Litvack, Ava Lew, Jessica Lapp, Rianka Singh, Jamila Ghaddar, Rebecka Sheffield, Amir Lavie, Michel Mersereau, Harrison Smith, Christie Oh, Zack Batist and others. A special thank you to Chris J. Young for being such a great friend from day one (i.e., INF3003), and to my PhD fellows at the DCI, Nathan Moles and Emily Maemura—your research inspires me. This project would not have been possible without the involvement of the CBC media librarians who made time in their busy schedules to allow me to learn about their work. Although I cannot name you here, I thank you sincerely. I appreciate the work you do to preserve Canada’s moving image heritage, and I hope this dissertation will allow others to learn about this work and appreciate it. On a personal level, I wish to thank my family. My parents Irena Ivanova and Ognyan Ivanov have given me more than words could describe. I hope that seeing this dissertation makes you proud as parents, but that it also piques your interest as engineers, who appreciate technology and the ways it is used in practice. Thank you! All this would not have been possible without you. I owe just as much to my uncle Petar Miladinov and his family and to my grandparents who are no longer with us. My in-laws Korneliya Genkova and Roumen Genkov, and my sister-in-law Maria Genkova and her beautiful children Mikaela and Madison have always been a source of joy and support. Last but not least, I wish to thank and dedicate this dissertation to my partner Lucie and our children Melia and Nikolay. Lucie has always been my rock and my biggest champion. Both Melia and Nikolay grew up with this dissertation. Melia was one-year-old when I began my degree, and it is beautiful to see her in elementary school as I am completing it. Nikolay was born a few weeks before I submitted my first full draft and is now 11 months old—just like the draft, he has grown and changed much in those 11 months. I love you, and I thank you. I know that over the years you sacrificed much to help me see this through. This dissertation was a labour of love and at times all- consuming, but you should never doubt that you are my only true loves! v Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................................................. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................... VI LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................................ XI LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................................................... XII LIST OF APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................................. XIII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 RESEARCH FOCUS: DIGITAL CURATION AS A CONCEPT, PRACTICE, AND THE SPACE IN-BETWEEN ................................................... 2 1.1.1 Questions and Approach .............................................................................................................................. 6 1.1.2 Secondary-Focus: Evaluative Practices ......................................................................................................... 7 1.1.3 The CBC News Archive ................................................................................................................................. 9 1.1.4 Intended Contribution to Knowledge .........................................................................................................