Assignment #8: Project Summary

The scrapbook collection at the Austin High School Archive is a unique and exciting collection that documents both student experiences and organizational activities over the past 100 years of the school's history. The scrapbooks were created by various student organizations – including Student Council, drama club, athletics department, and the PTA – as well as individual alumni. There are quite a few treasures in the collection, most notably the early 20th century personal scrapbooks compiled by graduates of AHS. The 168 scrapbooks exhibit many of the problems associated with these kind of composite objects – an array of unidentified inks, adhesives, papers, plastics, and other materials housed together in non-archival bindings – including brittle paper, adhesive migration, offsetting, and restricted openings. The scrapbooks range in condition from structurally sound to extremely deteriorated, but all are in need of some kind of preservation attention.

Because of the varying nature of the collection, both in terms of intellectual content and physical condition, we propose a range of actions that will address a few of the most pressing concerns. These actions will stabilize the scrapbooks to slow deterioration and allow for safe storage and handling; they will also allow the archive to provide wider access to the collections. A significant portion of the collection would benefit from housing in archival enclosures, providing safer handling and storage as well as buffering the materials from fluctuating environmental conditions. A subset of the scrapbooks would benefit from preservation reformatting, either digital or photocopied facsimiles. There are also a number of scrapbooks that would most benefit from more extensive physical treatment performed by a trained conservator.

Generally speaking, this collection is a rich resource for anyone interested in the history of Texas, Austin, secondary school education, Austin High School, high school student life, drama clubs, Student Council, high school athletics, and other extracurricular pursuits. More specifically, two groups with a clear vested interested in this collection are (1) the alumni and (2) current students, teachers, and staff. Austin High School has a large, active alumni organization that plays a vital role in maintaining the archive. Alumni donate many of the items in the archives, and tend to be the folks who access the collections for research. This collection already has a certain level of visibility – some of the scrapbooks are put on display for the school's annual Dedication Day festivities – but one of the primary advantages of more focused preservation efforts on the scrapbooks would be the chance to incorporate the collection into the current AHS curriculum. The scrapbook collection has the potential to serve as an excellent teaching tool for students about local history, give them a sense of ownership of their high school experience, and could be a good starting point for instruction in the importance of preservation, perhaps even encouraging them to create their own scrapbooks.

Because of the complex material nature of the scrapbooks, it is imperative that the archivist and volunteers at AHS work in close consultation with a trained conservator or preservation specialist. As conservators, Helen and I are trained in identifying the materials and patterns of deterioration evident in the collection. We are therefore well suited to providing the archive with a detailed assessment of the condition of the scrapbooks, as well as offering recommendations for care of the overall collection.