Monday, January 10, 2011

Archive at a Crossroads

During the last few months since my last entry, a lot has happened at the Archive. While my helper, Max, continues to work away at sports results, I have been considering the future of the Archive in several different ways. One important change is bound to happen - that is my retirement from teaching in July. I hope to continue as Archivist, but nothing is yet settled. I would enjoy keeping a real link with the College and helping in different ways, but retirement would actually give me time to deal with the second change - to make the Archive more completely digital.
The intention, for some time, has been to build a large website for the Archive. This has been delayed by a number of circumstances, not least that technology has been advancing so fast that it's difficult to keep up with the possibilities. Now it should be possible to include scanned from all our wonderful scrapbooks, lists of holdings, lists of drama, sports results, biographies of the great and good and much else. We should have areas made up just of photographs and, of course, we should have a link into this blog!
The important recent development is that the College has decided to organise access to the biographical information held by the Educational Trust, which should allow us to work together to provide accurate records of OEs and add in the interesting information that comes to me from day to day. Readers of a technical bent will realise that this will allow me to formalise the records of names of past pupils, allowing accurate data retrieval - a huge boon to the Archive - which will eventually open up huge possibilities for cataloguing.
On another matter, I must thank my correspondents, especially Tony Brewis, for their recent contributions of reminiscences about Epsom during and after the Second World War. Such contacts considerably enliven the record, I find!

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