2 minute read
A Visit to the Archives
Photos, Photos, and More Photos!
The Pingry Review has showcased Bynder, which houses the School’s digital photographs that have been taken over the past two decades (this fall, the collection surpassed the 450,000 mark). But print photos are another effort altogether.
Archivist Peter Blasevick and his staff are organizing a photo collection that consists of 15,000–20,000 photos, mostly representing the years 1970–2000. Unlike photos that are donated to Pingry by collectors who have pre-sorted their materials, these photos are being arranged into “artificial collections” to make it easier to find them.
The series include campus life, student life, extracurricular activities, athletics, the yearbook, faculty/staff, Advancement, and buildings. Within each series, the photos are organized chronologically—and, in many cases, the staff has used yearbooks to identify people and estimate when the photos were taken.
Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to find photographs, this organization project will create a neater way for the Archives to store these photographs and eventually digitize them.
To see more from the Archives, visit Pingry Flashes Back (pingry.org/flashesback). Recent posts include athletics trophies through the years and new homes for Pingry’s plaques that recognize donors and named spaces at previous campuses.
Finding Aids
Taking into account decades’ worth of multiple publications, as well as athletics memorabilia, thousands of photographs, and more, the Archives can quickly become overwhelming if a visitor does not have some kind of tool to know where to look. Enter “finding aids.”
“Each finding aid acts as a map of one of the Archives’ collections, like publications, so a researcher can find the items needed for research,” Mr. Blasevick says. “Think of it as a giant card catalogue—students, employees, and others will be able to access the Archives in more ways.”
An example of a finding aid, this one for Pingry’s collection of publications.
In Pingry History
10 YEARS AGO
John Quiñones, host of ABC’s What Would You Do? (a show that presents ethical situations to see if the public will speak up), speaks for the John Hanly Lecture Series on Ethics and Morality. He recognizes Middle and Upper School Music Teacher Jay Winston and then-Upper School Spanish Teacher Victor Nazario P ’90, ’94, who had appeared on the show.
Construction is in progress on the Hostetter Arts Center
Pingry initiates the requirement that all students in Grades 7-12 complete 10 hours of community service (today, community and civic engagement) by the end of the school year
Pingry and Kean College plan for the sale of the Hillside Campus
Implementation of freshman-senior discussion groups to help orient freshmen to the Upper School
20 YEARS AGO
30 YEARS AGO
40 YEARS AGO
50 YEARS AGO
60 YEARS AGO
The Beginning of Wisdom is published (read more in this issue’s feature)
70 YEARS AGO
Construction is in progress on the Hillside Campus
The Pingry Record and Blue Book announce a closer relationship, with students who work for one also working for the other, but the staffs are still considered separate
For the fifth consecutive year, the student body votes to continue the Honor System
