the world. In British
Columbia, educational
institutions, galleries,
civic community centres,
activist groups, and artist
collectives helped facilitate
access to the still
relatively expensive
equipment. In 1973, the SVES
and its public face, the

Video Inn Library (now the
CDMLA), was founded to enable
the free exchange of video
between alternative, non-
commercial producers. In a
time when video was still a
rare commodity, before the
internet or even the VCR, the
public could come to Video
Inn to view local and

international works they
could not see anywhere else.
   This exhibition looks at
the social and cultural
movements that influenced the
establishment of the Video
Inn Library, its early years,
and the SVES’s subsequent
expansion into access,
exhibition, distribution and

education. It illustrates how
the Crista Dahl Media Library
& Archive remains an enduring
and significant component of
the Society and its mission,
and of critical importance to
researchers, educators, and
artists interested in the
history of video, art, and
social activism. Perhaps most