access to archives

[Kathy Chung]

Hello All,

Just thought I'd throw out something for discussion:

I've been told several times that the powers that be at the Stratford
Festival charges researchers an hourly fee to use their archives and
wondered if it were so.  I've just had it confirmed that yes, this is so
and the cost is: $10/hr for those with university affiliation, $15/hr if
not.

I might just be naive and I certainly haven't visited as many archives as
others, but none of the archives I've ever visited charged me for their
use -- albeit most have been either university or government archives.
So, I thought I'd ask people on CANDRAMA:

(1) is it unusual, common, or something in between for archives to charge
for their use?

(1) do you know of other archives which charge users for access?  if so,
how much?

(2) might you like to comment on how situations such as at Stratford
will/did influence research, your own or in general?


---- Kathy.
______________________________________
Kathy Chung <kchung at chass.utoronto.ca>
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama
University of Toronto, Canada