History of Stylus Magazine to be digitized, archived at University of Winnipeg

Since 1989, Winnipeg-based Stylus Magazine has been supporting Canadian bands. Now, a project aims to preserve the magazine's legacy. Alex Karpa reports.

Near the University of Winnipeg library, boxes filled with materials chronicling music history dating back to 1989 are lined up, with the goal of ensuring they are available to future generations.

The University of Winnipeg Archives is currently working to digitize and archive Stylus Magazine, the music magazine published by students at the university since 1989, one of the longest-running in Canada. The magazine also serves as the programming guide for CKUW, the University of Winnipeg’s campus radio station.

“It came about as part of conversations I’ve been having with other faculty and staff on campus about trying to develop a strategy to archive Winnipeg’s independent music scene and the counterculture music scene,” said Brett Loughheed, archivist and digital curator of the University of Winnipeg Archives.

“We all realize that Stylus Magazine was kind of a key component to that.”

Maggie A. Clark, the magazine’s current assistant editor, has been working with the archives to help scan and digitize the back issues.

“Live music is really very much like an experiential and ephemeral thing, and like having these, these back issues of Stylus be accessible into the future is like a rare form of documentation of past moments in Winnipeg’s cultural history that wouldn’t be found really anywhere else,” Clark said.

The magazine has changed a lot over the decades, from a small, zine-like edition for the debut issue — profiling Sons of Freedom, The Grapes of Wrath and Sarah McLachlan — to the current format featuring reviews, columns and profiles of Propaghandi and other stalwarts of the Winnipeg music scene. The covers have also changed, featuring work from Manitoba artists and creatives.

Currently, Clark has digitized up to 2005.

“It’s been really fun, actually,” she said. “It’s given me a lot of music recommendations from before I was born, and it’s very interesting.”

Once digitized, each issue will also be catalogued with metadata, allowing those accessing the archives to search by artist, venue, and writer.

Almost the entire run of the magazine has been preserved in physical form, with only two issues unaccounted for.

“The backlog was located in the offices of Stylus and CKUW, kind of stashed away in bins and boxes in basement storage locations,” Lougheed said.

“So, by acquiring the records here at the University Archives, we can guarantee that they’ll be preserved for the long term, that they will be able to be made accessible to a wider audience, not only the in physical form, but in digital form.”

Lougheed said the issues still missing are Vol. 10, issue seven from April 1999 and Vol. 31, issue two from April 2020. He said anyone with information on the location of the issues is asked to call him at the archives at 204-786-9162.

The goal is to have the archives online and available for the public to browse by the end of the year, Lougheed said.

The future of Stylus

The archival project comes as the magazine was dealing with an uncertain future.

Last year, CKUW, which pays for the printing of Stylus, cut funding for the magazine due to a drop in enrolment at the University of Winnipeg, which had an impact on its budget.

A new issue was published this week, and Clark said the magazine has received funding for two more issues in 2026, but the future will be decided this spring.

“It will depend on when the board is setting the radio station’s budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, whether we are funded beyond that,” Clark said.

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