In the last few months, the Trinity-Pawling Archives on the ground floor of the Gardiner Learning Commons has gotten a little more attention thanks to the efforts of the Learning Commons staff- Amy Foster, Sara Ferraris, and particularly Megan Burlington, who is focusing her efforts on the archival collections. The staff, along with a recently assembled Archives Committee comprised of members of the community, has jumpstarted efforts to turn the archive office into a more efficiently used space. Senior Louis Inghilterra has also contributed a great deal to the organization through his work for his Winter Project about the history of several of Trinity-Pawling’s notable buildings. In addition, work has started to comprehensively digitize items stored in the archives that can be searched electronically.
Concurrently, library assistant Nicolle McDougal has been carefully archiving digitized content that would otherwise evaporate. Everything currently happening at the School has been saved both digitally and in print as there is no guarantee of future retrieval of some electronic items. “We are also piloting an online photo directory software program called Vidigami, which tags and organizes images, and which has the capacity to have community members, including alumni, contribute images,” says Foster.
Another initiative that has helped with archival efforts has been that of the Oklahoma Correctional Institute. Trinity-Pawling yearbooks are sent to the facility and trained inmates carefully scan the books, returning digital copies of individual pages via DVD with the original yearbooks. “We will soon have our full collection of yearbooks scanned, including rare Pawling School Scrolls, at no cost to us!” Burlington exclaims.
Currently there is limited space in the archives, but if you have an item you might like to donate, please send a photo or physical description of the object, including its condition, to mburlington@trinitypawling.org and we will contact you if we are able to accept it into our collection. We are more able to accommodate items and photographs from the Pawling School era (1907 to 1942).