Kodak Canada: increasing access to advertising materials in Ryerson University Library's Special Collections

In 2005, amidst declining sales of film-based photographic materials, Kodak Canada Inc. ceased manufacturing operations at its Toronto headquarters. Before the property’s sale, the material in its corporate archive and employee museum was donated and removed to Ryerson University, where it became the keystone of Ryerson University Library’s newly established Special Collections department. While some Kodak Canada material has been processed and utilized in displays and other forms of presentation, the advertising collection - ordered chronologically from 1922 to 1987 in heavy ledger books, but not catalogued at item level - has remained largely untouched. This project’s goal has been to create avenues of access to this portion of the Kodak Canada Heritage Collection through its cataloguing and digitization, and to facilitate its presentation on a Special Collections website. The following pages present the historical background of Kodak Canada and the advertising collection, provide reference data, and describe the practical methodologies applied to the project.