2020 was a difficult and strange year for everyone, but during those “unprecedented” times, at The Glasgow Academy Archive, we viewed it as an opportunity to set up and launch our new professional Archive service.
The Archive collection dates from 1845 to the present day, and relates to all aspects of the school’s history consisting of Governance and Administrative Records, Minutes, Admission Registers, Financial Records, Records of Clubs and Societies, School Magazines and Publications, Officer Training Corps Records and other associated miscellaneous historical papers and objects. There is also a large collection of physical and digital photographic material of various sizes, shapes and formats.
Over the last year prior to lockdown, the priority had been to organise, pack and store this collection as well as beginning the process of cataloguing the items.
But the lockdown and subsequent restrictions meant a period of home working which encouraged us to look at different ways to work, to promote the service, and to use the Archive to engage with our wider community. Digital engagement has always been something that The Glasgow Academy has embraced, and during lockdown, their blended learning approach was extremely successful. But one of the challenges faced by the Archive was being able to launch the service as was intended in April 2020, to coincide with our second season of the “Ronnie Woods’ Memorial Lecture Series”.
After a successful and well-attended first season of lectures in March 2019, our plan was to use the second season in 2020 as a platform to launch the new Archive service to our stakeholders and broader community. However, as this was impossible, we set up social media accounts [@TGAArchive] to showcase what we have in the collection and decided to make a short video to virtually launch instead!
Another way we engaged with our school community and externally was through a series of “Then and Now” blog posts which compared how the school dealt with the crisis of war comparing some aspects to the 2020 / 2021 events. By drawing parallels between the two situations, it was a way of bringing these historic events to life using photographs and images or items from the collection. These short articles which appeared online and in our Etcetera publication gave the newly appointed Archivist an opportunity to learn about the history of the school and to share these stories with others; something that may not have been a top priority when establishing a new Archive, when there was so much work to be done!
One of the messages we have tried to put across is that the collection cannot be static; it is not simply about looking after what we have already, but to continue to collect as daily life occurs. And as the Covid-19 pandemic was such an important event globally, we began to collect information about how the school responded to this, such as the communications sent out to parents and carers. Also, some of our senior pupils created a student newspaper in April 2020 called Quaran Times which included updates, advice for health and well-being, and activities. You can read them here.
Although recent events are still fresh in our mind, in years to come, this will not always be so; they may be of interest to researchers in future, or useful as a tool to show how the school was run or what measures were put in place during this period, which is extremely valuable.
The forced hiatus caused by Covid-19 can be viewed as positive in some ways. It allowed us to reflect on what we have in the collection, how it can be used to promote the school through communications and media and as a way of increasing meaningful engagement, which has been proved through the positive feedback received about our videos, broadcasts, publications and communications.
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