During the last three visits to the UBC’s RBSC, I primarily worked with the Douglas Coupland Archive. One part of this archive (and a portion of the texts pre-selected for us to work with) was the folder he created containing research for his book, City of Glass. After it was given to UBC, it was preserved in exactly the same way it was originally put together because the order in which he organized his research and the method in which he did so has significance.

This made me think, who really is the archivist? On the one hand, UBC’s RBSC has played a significant role in the archival process. They collected all the materials in the Douglas Coupland Archive and organized them in a way they deemed to be productive and logical. In this Ubyssey article, written in 2012 by Kayi Wong, she describes the process of organizing, and updating the Douglas Coupland archive (whose original materials were first acquired in 2010). It is clear from this article that a lot of thought and time must be put into this process, particularly when trying to find “how and if [texts] relate to eachother” (Gillean).

The article makes it clear that there is a balance that must be achieved between maintaining the texts exactly as they were created but also organizing them in a way that aids others in understanding how texts are related. This highlights the important role that the UBC archivists play in determining how an archive is presented and understood. This role is particularly evident when remembering how our texts for this terms first ASTU paper were chosen. UBC contributed to my understanding of the Douglas Coupland archive initially by effecting how the texts were collected upon their arrival at UBC and again when choosing which of these texts would be given to me for the ASTU paper.

However, Douglas Coupland himself also played a role in my understanding of his archive. The way he presented his City of Glass research folder is the same way I am currently seeing it today. In the process of organizing the folder he had to choose what materials he wanted to include, that he wanted to organize it by chapter, and that he wanted to hold it in an accordion folder.

Taking all this into consideration, it could be argued that the library archivist, Sarah Romkey, the three graduate students (mentioned in the article), and Douglas Coupland were all archivists in this context. All five of these people had a direct influence on the organization of the Douglas Coupland archive and therefore influencing how I perceive and understand it.