- 2012.005
- Fonds
- 194? - 2004
Records: [textual ; graphic ; photographic; audio visual; artifacts ; publications]
194? - 2004 : 36 Bankers boxes and 23 map cabinet drawers.
The Robert Hackborn fonds contains the records that Mr. Hackborn generated during the course of his television production career and maintained at his private residence after his retirement in 1993. This includes documentation going back to Mr. Hackborn's youth and earliest professional days. The research value of the records in this fonds is significant as it relates to the history of Canadian television production, and the specific programs that Mr. Hackborn contributed to. As an example, the fonds contains photographic and textual documentation of the earliest stages of the show development process for the important children's television programs Mr. Dressup and Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood. The fonds also contains extensive documentation of the creative processes behind the development of Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, including images of, and correspondence with Mr. Henson.
During his career, Mr. Hackborn was also responsible for the execution of a very large collection of photographs that document the processes of working on a television set. With a professionally trained eye for composition and his camera, Mr. Hackborn systematically documented the television production process of the shows that he worked on. As a result of this work, the Robert Hackborn Fonds contains an impressive collection of this photographic documentation, which should serve as a valuable resource for future academics looking into the history of Canadian cultural output. Note on arrangement: This Robert Hackborn Fonds has been arranged in a manner that pays as much respect to the concept of Original Order as practically possible. Although the collection has been separated into Series based on General Material Designation in the finding aid and database, the physical arrangement of the collection remains identical to the manner in which Hackborn organized and stored his records, except where issues of physical size made such arrangement impossible. The oversized materials in this collection have therefore been arranged and stored in map cabinets designed to accommodate their physical dimensions. In addition, there is a small collection of oversized objects that have been stored on shelves above the collection owing to their size.
Access: There are no restrictions on access to this collection. Researchers must schedule an appointment with Archives & Special Collections in order to view the records, and no records are permitted to leave the reading room or to be loaned out.
Hackborn, Robert Arthur, Mr., September 22, 1928