Tuesday, March 28, 2017

ALAS

A student running for an office in the Association of Latin American Students wanted info re the origins of the group. Their history has come up before, and sent him a merged file of Saga and Stylus entries about the early years of the group.

Gordon Hall

Students from a "mobile journalism" class emailed me about the history of Gordon Hall. Sent link to web page of building histories, offered to meet today if they wanted.

Math & Physics 50th anniversaries

Sanford Miller in Math contacted me, they are having a joint party with Physics to celebrate their 50th anniversaries as distinct departments. (In the old Teachers College they were part of a big "Science" unit. In 1966-67 the old large units were broken down into a number of separate, independent units, math, economics etc.) Needs pics etc., by end of week. Will search and send what I can.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Helen Hastings

A couple students came by, researching Helen Hastings for this art exhibit coming up, and for the village museum. Shared a photo of her, links to her books we have online, Old Houses of Monroe County etc. Talked about how she was related to William Seymour, founded the village museum...

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Mary Heddon Brown 1945

Nice surprise to get an email from someone in the class of '45! She said she wrote for the Stylus back then, and was interested in seeing some of it. I sent her links to NYS Historic Newspapers, explained some of how that works, and also a link to the yearbooks online. Asked if she was local, that I would visit if she liked to explain these things better, or she was welcome to visit the archives...

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Nancy Vuolo 1990

Request for info on her from reporter in Hudson Valley, working on a story about athletes from Columbia Greene Community College who went on to play at 4 year schools. Nancy and her sister Linda both played on our softball team. Found and sent him a page of her stats.

Bergen Swamp films

In 1969-70 Jean Bobear (pictured left in 1956) and Jay Reese of this college produced a set of four films on the unique environmental site known as the Bergen Swamp. The films chronicled the changing seasons of the swamp, it's environment etc. Unfortunately at some point it was decided at the college to keep only the latest versions of many of our films, and so the original 16mm was discarded, and only the VHS kept. The VHS is not the best quality, but it was all we had.


Recently however original film footage was found, and it is apparently in quite good condition. The Bergen Swamp Society people have it, and I have been in contact with them. They are going to have it digitized at Eastman House, and will share the files with us. Very exciting news, it will be wonderful material for the Digital Commons!

Monday, March 20, 2017

Womens Center History

Very curious, they are having the 20th anniversary of the Womens Center soon, and an intern of theirs was here to look for some information. Showing her how to search the Stylus online, we were surprised to see that there was some earlier Womens Center, in the 1980s, that grew out of a Womans Coalition of the late 1970s. More to their history than they, or I, had realized!

Chemistry Departmental Scholars

Emory Morris wants to put together a list of Chemistry Departmental scholars. Will look through Honors Convocation programs, not sure where else off hand.

Portraits & Photos of Principals and Presidents

Helped Matt Yeoman lately, finishing this am, with a project to supply and identify all known images of heads of the school. The earliest known image we have is of Malcolm MacVicar, the 1866 photo from Alumni House. For most of the latter folks they are going to go with photos of their portraits. The portraits themselves, which for many years were hung on the 7th floor in Allen, are currently in a secure room in Tower, awaiting funding for restoration.

Scholarship names

Barbara Power in Advancement, working with someone else, who is doing a slide show on some of the scholarships, and wants short bio statements and pics of the people. I have most, all probably, and by happy coincidence Lyndsey Richards is working on this very area for her internship this spring.

Roland "Sandy" Sandberg '59

Worked with his widow, Doris, before. He was part of the top notch soccer team we had then. She is working on having him added to his high school athletic hall of fame, and wanted to check on the year he was made part of the All NY Soccer Players. I found a record, it was 1958.

Friday, March 17, 2017

Library history

Wrote article for the Friends newsletter "The Scroll" on the early history of the library, up thru Janette Reynolds, Normal school era.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Microfilm!

Some might wonder why do this still, in the digital era, but actually microfilm is still very important. In this case, I sent out the last 4 semesters of the Stylus to Biels to be microfilmed. I also have the newspaper bound into volumes. So I'll have paper copy, microfilm, and at some point the microfilm can be digitized, and added to NYS Historic Newspapers, where it already is held 1928-2014.


So why not just digitize, and skip the microfilm? Well, the print copy won't last forever, although I have some bound newspapers from 40, 50 years ago that aren't too bad. Digital is very accessible, but also very potentially ephemeral. A server goes out, files get corrupted somehow, software and format changes led to materials that can no longer be opened...


Microfilm on the other hand will last easily a century or two, takes up little space, and can always be utilized. In with the new, but keep some of the old one might say. Pictured here is the microfilm room in 1971 in the "old" Drake, when we were in what is now Rakov.

Twitter account

After FLC meeting with social media staffer Dave Tyler decided that in addition to Facebook work I do, with the Rose Archives page there, posts in Remembering Brockport etc., that I would set up a Twitter account. I did, as BrockportArchives, @BrockportArch1. Have posted a couple times, see how it goes!

Activism on campus

John Fallaco asked about activism on campus, researching a story for The Port. Sent him link to Vietnam era study done by student John Butz in '91, also some other suggestions and resources.

Women's Center 20th

Am doing a table display at their 20th anniversary 4/14. Also am going to work with one of their students who wants to do some sort of slide show.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Canal Project - College

Emailed some with Beau Willis yesterday and today re the canal, the college development of its frontage... He shared an updated slide show that incorporates some of the elements I had shared with him before, clips from the Stylus etc.

Helen Hastings

Query from student (Nikqufa Pryce,) part of small group researching her. Had communicated briefly with her before, sent her more today, Hasting's obit, founding of museum, links to her books online...

Ken O'Brien - photos

Even though out sick, the archives keeps getting questions, luckily can do some via email! Ken O'Brien needed permission to use some archival images, and also I think is going to want some higher res images.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

1977 Wrestling team

Query from an alum looking for a team pic, that was the first year the team won the national title. I had one scanned already and emailed to him.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Ted Williams '77

John Maier from English has been doing some research with and on this grad, a Tuscarora Indian. Wanted to see yearbook etc.