Have You Seen... was more than a collection, a curator, a business; but a site of community members interacting with a community. On January 26, Gzowski College organized a panel discussion at the Peterborough Public Library between Howard Gibbs, co-owner of Have You Seen...; Zailig Pollock, Director of Trent’s Public Texts MA program; Charlie Foran, writer and President of Pen In Ink Canada; Ray Dart, professor in Trent’s Business Administration department and Peterborough Green Up member; and Tom Phillips, economy professor and Peterborough native. Jordan Pool, Gzowski College Cabinet President, moderated.
“We did purposely have a panel with some economic, some business, some cultural, some English lit and [the] store owner, so we could get a few different perspectives,” says Melanie Bundle, Gzowski College Senior Tutor.
In her role as President Pool aims to “tune into the community and see what kind of issues are coming up,” and the closing of Have You Seen... is an issue that is “important to the community and students.” Jordan set a goal of $1000 in order to buy some of the DVDs from the closing video store.
The DVDs can be checked out from the Alternative Resource Library in Sadleir House in the near future. Lady Eaton College has purchased some of the Nazi-themed DVDs, and Cavan-Monaghan Libraries purchased some of the Canadiana DVDs. Gibbs says that it is “an amazing silver lining that [the DVD collection] is still going to be there in some form.”
The talk was not a nostalgic lament about the loss of a video store, or public figures gathered to gush over the amazing job Have You Seen... did, but a discussion about the ways consumers of media in Peterborough gather, interact, and explore each other’s experience. Each speaker eloquently brought up unique and overlapping points, to complement one another while bringing their own expertise to bear on a fruitful discussion about what made Have You Seen... work.
Zailig Pollock started by introducing the concept of “the useful conversation going on” at Have You Seen.... It was this “value added” that made the store more than a store, but a place of cultural exchange.
And the movies were not the only topic of conversation. “Here is a video store without video screens”, said Foran as he made the point that the music, magazines, or books were as likely to be discussed as the movies on the shelf. You went in to be interested.
The loss was not the loss of a collection (because the movies that are not already on the Internet will be one day) it is the loss of the staff and customers who inform and shape your interests, and allow you to explore your own interests in contrast to theirs.
Zailig believes the Internet can use an algorithm to determine what you will like, with astonishing accuracy, but it will always be a closed circuit of your own interests, unless it has someone else’s interests to bump up against. “It’s only through the communities of other people (their tastes, interests, and passions) that I was able to find this as a distinctive, interesting valuable and wonderful place,” says Ray Dart. And in this way Have You Seen… was “a gesture against fragmentation” says Foran.
Watching a film can be a very solitary thing, Foran points out, but the store was a knock against that in so far as you had to arrive in public and interact with the interests and tastes of others to select your movie. Without the coherent factor that was the taste of the staff and owners, home movie watchers are “adrift in a sea of choice” when it comes to surfing the Internet in order to catch a cinematic break.
Not only was Have You Seen… a great way to experience both high and low culture, it was a business model that worked for 10 years. And for Phillips and Dart, that was important to note. One of the more obvious lessons of economics is that businesses exist in communities and communities exist around “shared value” (Phillips).
The business was not financially viable, but Phillips is wondering whether the community will be. “Capitalism isn’t given to us or determined for us, it’s a social entity (and to the degree we have influence over it is a question)... it is founded in social relationships,” Phillips said.
Dart also spoke about other local business models that created and maintained communities: “make a business model that thrives because of the communities it creates” because it encourages “participation, not passivity.”
As the project to keep parts of the Have You Seen… collection moves forward, it is interesting to see the conversation move to different venues and it is important to keep Tom Phillips’ question of whether it was the business that was successful, or the community it created.
An audio version of the talk will be broadcast on Trent Radio 92.7 CFFF fm on Tuesday February 28th at 5pm.
