Q: I need photos for my organization's upcoming anniversary. Can you help?
A: Maybe.
Maybe we can get you started with “stuff” in the 2500+ vertical files that staff has gathered hit or miss through time.
Maybe you can come in and use the newspaper backfiles, government records, etc. that we have in the Research Room to compile such a history, use for a presentation, display, on your website, in your social media, etc. (Note: BDC staff provides the resources; you do the research legwork.)
And just maybe those folks took great photos at events that you can use in your project - which unfortunately was not the case for the AAUW chapter's records as the women doing the research discovered during a recent visit to the Research Room.
In other words, what we have to help you celebrate an anniversary will be a mixed bag.
I often suggest to customers in the process of compiling materials for an organization's anniversary that they poll current members and former members - and the adult children of deceased former members - for any programs or photographs that they might have. Sometimes a documentary treasure will turn up from the ask.
I encourage donation of compiled printed histories of organizations to the BDC for future researchers to use. If your organizational history is one sheet, we'd add that to our vertical files. If the compiled history if over 20 pages, odds are it will get cataloged as a book for our stacks. In both cases, a researcher would have access to the documentation about your organization. Because the BDC is the permanent part of the Library system, what is done this year to document the organization's history will help future members observe future anniversaries say in 2034, 2084, etc.
Sometimes I suggest that the researcher's organization might consider donating their inactive records to the BDC for permanent safe-guarding because the bottom line is: The BDC cannot share what it does not have.
Documenting a business, organization, or agency's anniversary with archives most often depends on past donations of materials to archives repositories.
As the Society of American Archivists online brochure Donating Your Organization's Records to a Repository states:
The heart of your organization’s memory is in its records. If your organization values its history, you [emphasis is mine] must act to save the original letters, minutes, reports, photographs, publications, and other documents—in both physical and digital forms—that officers, members, directors, employees, or volunteers have produced and compiled over the years. These documents provide unique testimony to the achievements of your organization. Such materials are also extremely valuable for administrative, legal, fiscal, and public relations purposes. Your organization’s history is important to your community, too. By donating your organization’s records to an archival repository, you will assure that its history and heritage will be part of your community’s collective memory.
- By donating your organization’s records to an archival repository, you will assure that its history and heritage will be part of your community’s collective memory.
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