CWMA: One of the resource tools we've been work- ing on for a year now is a guide to archival material on the women's movement across Canada. That's one way that we're reaching out, making archival material accessible across Canada; but also to encourage women to maintain their own material on their own groups.

We do have a photocopier, and for a charge we can photocopy materials for individuals who aren't here and can't get here to look at it.

There's also the flexibility of our hours. If a woman's coming in from out of town, and can only come in to the archives on a Saturday, or on a Tuesday evening, or whatever, we can adapt to that quite easily.

Aisla: Can you give us an example of a typical request to use the archives?

CMWA: People come, wanting to do research on usually a very broad topic. Somebody called yesterday and wanted material on the history of abortion, going back to the Roman Empire. I pointed out that it was a little before our period, but did give them some bibliographic suggestions, and told him something of what we have here. Frequently women come wanting information on specific groups. Somebody's working in here right now on how women's groups form coalitions.

We also get requests from the organizations who deposit the material in the archives, to come back and look at their own history. Also, women working in the women's movement want to have a sense of what other groups have done in that area.

Aisla: Getting back to the idea of collective, do you also recruit volunteers to assist you with the collection?

CWMA: As part of the, Women's Studies program at U of T the women are asked to spend some time working with a women's organization, so we have three students with us right now, which is really helpful. We have other people who appear, depending on the project, who we can call on.

In fact there's more than the one kind of volunteer. . . there are the women in Winnipeg who keep an envelope -- what we call the "manila envelope theory of archival collecting" -- who simply pick up leaflets, minutes, whatever they get their hands on, and mail them to us.

They are part of the general archives family, and a really important part, because we can't be in all of those places, and we do depend on them to send us material.

Aisla: So tell me a little bit about the funding situation here. You've implicated a few times about funding problems.

CWMA: We don't receive any operational funding from the government. so we have to foundries all the basic costs for the archives: rent, phone, any kind of supplies that we need, typewriters, equipment, filing cabinets, etc.

Aisla: What is your funding situation right now?

CWMA: Well, right now we are just waiting to find out about our government grant. We've received some job-training grants for training women in different fields -- the library archival skills, also computer skills. We have an IBM PC that we use to catalogue our material.