Trip to inventory the archive
January 16, 2015 9:00 am

Tamar, Tim, and Vio, all of whom are LREI alums and work with alumni affairs, took me to visit the archives room at the high school and the off-site archives storage space. Tamar and Tim have been working tirelessly to get archival materials in order and have done a pretty good job thus far.  The problem is that some materials have been sorted, most not, and everything is being stored in three separate locations without even a rudimentary finding aid.

The LREI Archives Room on the first floor of the high school building  is quite stunning with cabinets to house archival materials, shelves to display photos and other items, a large seminar table, a large screen for presentations, and a wall of windows looking out onto the courtyard.  It also has one small closet.

However stunning it is, the room needs a few adjustments in order to protect our archival material better. The display shelves face the windows, and photographs fade when exposed to light. The room’s window could be UV protected, or UV glass could be installed on the shelves themselves to protect our photos and papers on display.  The cabinets do not have locks, allowing people to stash their unwanted books, telephones, and other miscellania amongst archival records and photos. Small locks could be installed to discourage people from using them as their own personal storage spaces.  The closet has built-in shelves.  The shelves could be removed and a shelving unit that accommodates archival file boxes could be put it.

With a little work and imagination this room will be able to house a large portion of the LREI archives and already houses several containers of photos and many back issues of yearbooks. I took a quick inventory of what is there, took some measurements of the cabinets and closets, snapped several photos, and then we moved on to the Manhattan Mini Storage closet that Tamar and Tim have kindly rented for LREI to house the bulk of the archival materials

At Manhattan Mini, numerous file boxes full of photos and papers sit on Metro shelving and on the floor. Some boxes are labeled, others are not. We did not have time to open the boxes but, again, I took a quick inventory of what is there, took measurements of the shelves, and snapped photos. We will be returning to the storage space again soon to begin transferring boxes to the LREI Archives room.

I figured that since I took preliminary inventories of the archives room and the storage space today, I might as well go back to the Lower School and poke around in the archives closet down by Ryann and LJ’s office. Again, like the room at the high school, people had over the years mixed miscellaneous items (paper lanterns, a boom box, novels and other books) in with the archival materials. There are many photos and yearbooks and other school publications on shelves, some in labeled archival boxes, as well as an assortment of LREI-related DVDs and VHS tapes.

 

The only group of archival material that we have not seen is with Nick O’Han, the school historian and high school teacher. He is writing a book about Elisabeth Irwin and thus may have a significant amount of valuable early material. Once we have ascertained what he has, we will have a better idea of what we’re working with. To read an article by Nick about the history of LREI, click here.

To view my preliminary inventory list, click here.