Last fall, I was approached by L.J. Mitchell and Ryann Imperioli in the LREI Office of Advancement to possibly work with them to create an institutional archive in advance of LREI’s centennial celebration in 2021. I am an LREI parent who also happens to be an archivist, and I was delighted with the idea. LREI has saved important archival material since its founding, but it has not yet been catalogued as a comprehensive collection, and I, as well as everyone else, thought that an institution as important to New York and educational history should have a proper archive that can be made accessible to staff, alumni, current and future families, and researchers.
An archive will not only be a record of LREI’s rich history, but can also serve as a development tool as well as an educational tool for students. Online exhibitions of items from the archives could bring together alumni scattered across the world, thus kindling school spirit and nostalgia, which would in turn widen the growing LREI community. Students can learn to use archival materials as research tools before going off to university, where they will be asked to perform rigorous research with primary source materials. Historians of New York, education, and social movements would be able to access the materials and add LREI to their research. There are myriad ways that an archive can represent the school to diverse audiences and spread the word about a place where progressive education thrives.
One year into my involvement with the archives, we have made much progress to lay the foundations of a solid archives program. This post is a recap of what has been accomplished thus far and what I think we should do moving forward toward the centennial in 2021.
- Archives Needs Assessment Report
Since it was last processed in 1996, the LREI Archives have been slowly dismantled due to lack of stewardship. Items were removed by staff for reunions, publications, etc. and were not returned or properly protected, which has resulted in damage to valuable archival items. Items were also placed in piles in no particular order, making these items irretrievable for future use.
Martha Foley, our current archival consultant and the archivist who arranged part of LREI’s archive back in 1996 through a grant from the New York State Documentary Heritage Program, has assessed the current state of our archives and submitted a report of her findings. I have attached a summary of the report that reviews her eight recommendations for next steps.
- Elisabeth Irwin Papers
On October 8, I had coffee with Nick O’Han, former high school teacher and school historian. Nick returned to the Office of Advancement two boxes from LREI’s treasure trove of clippings and photos related to Elisabeth Irwin and the founding of our school, documents that he knows by heart because he is in the process of writing the definitive history of LREI that includes an in-depth study of Irwin and her circle. There may be files still missing from this record group, as some of Nick’s files are in storage. He has assured me that he will look through his off-site files to see if there are any belonging to the LREI Archives. In addition, I am pleased that he has agreed to write the historical note for our collection once it has been processed.
- Yearbook Digitization
Last spring, Violeta Picayo, LREI Alumni Associate, and I went on a treasure hunt to track down two copies of every issue of Expression from 1945 (the first year it was published) until the present to keep in our archive, one working copy and one archive copy. We did surprisingly well, I must say. We found every issue except 1945, 1949, and 1965.
Over the summer, LREI contracted with Hudson Archival to digitize our yearbooks so that we can put them online. We just received the digital files this past week. We hope to make the images searchable so that alumni can tag images to help us identify people in photos, as well as get back in touch with the LREI community.
- City & Country Archives
Last January I paid a visit to Jordis Rosenberg, School Archivist of the City & Country Archives. Like LREI, C&C began processing their archives in advance of their centennial in 2014. I thought we could learn a lot from C&C’s experience and that Jordis would be a great contact for us.
The C&C archives room is a small, climate controlled room in the basement dedicated to their archives. The room is lined with shelving that holds documents, photos, and artwork by students. Jordis, who was not the archivist at the archives’ inception, explained to me that almost all of their archival materials were processed by school librarians and parent volunteers and that they used few outside vendors. They did, however, hire someone to consult with them about designing the grand plan of the project before they began.
- LREI Archives Blog
From the very beginning, I have been blogging about every step of our archiving process. This blog is accessible through the LREI website and provides news of our. I will continue to write this blog until the archive is fully processed and ready to be accessed by the LREI community.
- Now What?
During the coming year, I hope that we will make steady progress toward the goals outlined in the Archival Needs Assessment Report.
The report recommends first and foremost that we designate a climate controlled room to exclusively house the LREI archives. There is no such room available at this time, but this committee should work toward this end in the coming years.
In the interim, the most important and valuable documents, including the Elisabeth Irwin Papers, should be housed in a designated cabinet in the Advancement Office. Staff will monitor use of these documents to ensure that all items are returned and refiled properly. I volunteer to begin processing these documents using the inventory taken in 1996 to determine what, if anything, is missing from the Elisabeth Irwin Papers.
In addition, I suggest that we prioritize our photograph collection for processing. The closet in the Archives Room at the High School could be used to house photographs from LREI’s collection for the time being. All photographs, aside from the most fragile images and including all photographs being stored off site, should be moved to this closet for processing by volunteers. If possible, a lock should be placed on the closet door to prevent use of the closet for other purposes and to ensure that the order of processed photographs is not disturbed.
Now that we have received the digitized yearbooks, we will need to find someone who can handle the files and make them available online. Ideally, this would be someone on staff or a parent or alumni volunteer. An outside vendor could also be considered depending on budget.
Last but not least, we need volunteers to help with processing. L.J. and I have discussed the possibility of affiliating somehow with the PA. This would get the word out and would facilitate outreach. Another possibility is to get interns from nearby library science schools to work for credit. These options should be discussed at the next Archives Committee meeting.