CULTURE Archives
It has been a year of ups and downs, reflecting New Zealand’s response to Covid-19. It began with the usual January jobs, catching up with sewing clothing bags and thinking about In Black & White and College articles. The requests for information about Old Boys from family members started early and has flowed on throughout the year. The photos for Old Boys’ reunions accumulated on and off during this time as well, until they were ready for the end of February. Then lockdown threatened … so it was a mad scramble to fill up the boot of the car with material that could safely be worked on at home for as long as it was necessary. The result was a lot of indexing sitting propped up on the card table in the middle of the living room. But it was indexing that there was never any time to do in my usual two days at College. Good indexing saves archivists a lot of time, and those that were created from the Christ’s College Register , from the Old Boys’ notes for World War II, the Games Committee Minute Books, and the School Record Book (which provides a great deal of information about the early curriculum) have made hunting for the answers to questions even more efficient. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care drew executive assistants Shari Clunne and Mel Libeau and the archivist together as they undertook the legal requirements for that process. Collaboration with colleagues is an important part of an archivist’s day to day life. Work is almost completed in association with the library to move the library stack, so the archives can have a little more space and the library will have easier access to their books.
Above: Form VI (Year 13) work for the first half year in 1870. School Record Book pg 104.
More organised space means that the archives collection gathered over many years will aid in providing material for College’s 175th anniversary celebrations in 2025. A 175th anniversary committee has been formed and one of the tasks of that committee is to attempt to trace those in the present College community who are descendants of the first 175 boys. Already there have been responses from the lists created and published in In Black & White . Policies and procedures around the acceptance of items for the archives require constant revision as the collection changes over time. Questions such as, “Do we already have this item?”, “Can the archives properly care for this item?”, and “Does this item actually have a
Christ’s College connection” are all part of the process when an item is offered to the archive. Accessions this year have been slimmer than in the past, but just as varied. For example, a bucket cap purchased from the College Shop has been added to the collection, along with the 2019 1st XI score cards, two soccer cups that have been replaced, a vinyl record of the choir singing, and further additions to the textbook collection, along with regular newspaper clippings. The Harris Collection Updating the Harris Collection of writing by and related to Old Boys has been the focus of the latter part of the year. It became clear that at various times books had been added to the collection without being
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Christ’s College Canterbury
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