On February 26, I had the pleasure and honor of attending a meeting of archivists from NYC independent schools at the Collegiate School. Also present were archivists from Trinity, Nightingale, St. Bernard’s, Spence, among others and representatives from the Winthrop Group and Gartenberg Media Enterprises, two companies who work closely with school archives in New York.

The meeting covered topics such as collections policies, management programs, disaster recovery programs, digitization, and storage. I remained silent during the meeting, as we at LREI have not yet set up these systems. I listened intently and learned much from the recommendations of experienced archivists.

Looking back at the meeting, the thing that strikes me most is how much each school represented treasures its archive. Everyone agreed that whatever resources had been put into setting up and maintaining their archives, they had recovered their “investment,” whether financial or in kind, exponentially. Many of them, like ours, were assembled in advance of a centennial celebration, and have since gone on to be valuable resources for fundraising, alumni relations, and recruitment of new students.

I feel that the LREI archives will also serve all of these functions, but that perhaps its most important function will be to preserve the legacy of Elisabeth Irwin and her creation of a most extraordinary, ground-breaking, and singular school whose legacy has gone on to influence not only New York City schools, but the field of education as a whole.

To read more about the importance of archives in school, read my fellow archivist’s article “Remembering the Backstory: Why Keeping and Promoting School Archives Matters” in Independent School magazine’s 75th anniversary issue.