Preserving Your School’S History

Preserving Your School’s History

Diane Oestreich

Teacher Librarian

Fullerton Union High School

Fullerton Union High School

• Founded in 1893 (second oldest school in Orange County, after Santa Ana)

Plummer Auditorium

A Room With a View

A Room With a View

What We Have Done

• Alumni Directory

• School Archives (goal: create a database)

• Newspapers Digitized

• Annuals (aka Yearbooks)

• History of the school (book)

• History of the school (presentation to freshmen)

Alumni Directory

• Contacted by Harris Publishing on behalf of Cal State Fullerton

• Why not Fullerton Union High School?

• We have now published three directories: 1997, 2001, and 2006

• When people call with updates, I take down their info and pass it on

Postcard for Updates Created in Publisher

School Archives

• 1993 for school centennial

• CSU Fullerton/San Jose State class

• Database needed

Keep for Archives

• Student and Staff Handbooks

• District publications

• Campus newsletters

• Newspaper clippings about staff and students

• Union bargaining agreements

Newspaper Digitization

• PDFs created by an alum of the Class of 1951(Ron Doss)

• Digital photos taken by librarians attending ALA in Anaheim in 2008 (and Ron came too)

• Frustration…

• Northern Micrographics to the rescue!

Specifics and Costs

• 6884 pages, of which 2114 were larger than 11X17” (and cost more)

• Money deposited in the Education Foundation (donations, note cards, etc.)

• $5614.90• Oops, more copies were found after we had

done the original bunch: $522.96• It cost $500 to ship the first bound volumes UPS,

then $130 for the “found” ones

Specifics and Costs

• Pages were first disbound• Bitonal Scanning• OCE, saved as Rescarta data• We had to create our own masthead• They arranged the volumes by decade• Text is searchable• Right now the newspapers are only

viewable within the District network

The Results

Northern Micrographics Contact Information

Northern Micrographics

2004 Kramer Street

La Cross, Wisconisin 54603

Scott Pechacek

1-800-236-0850

Ext. 107

[email protected]

Make Friends with Your Public Librarian

• Fullerton Public Library has a Local History Department

• They have provided me with lots of helpful information from their newspaper and photo files

• Cathy Thomas from FPL has been great to work with

• Occasionally I have something to give them too

Local Historical Societies

• Fullerton has a local historical society

• Warren Bowen was one of my teachers when I was a student a Fullerton High. He writes a column for the local Fullerton Observer newspaper.

Long-time District Employees

• People in the district who have worked there a long time provide a lot of information

• The people in charge of Plummer Auditorium on our campus are great sources of information

• The district director of facilities knows every nook and cranny and most of the dark secrets

Annuals (Yearbooks)

• We have them back to 1905, when Baseball Hall of Famer Walter Johnson pitched for Fullerton Union High School

• We try to keep one untouchable set, then another collection that people can look at

• If people want to buy an old yearbook, they do that through the Activities office

History of the School (Book)

• Louis E. Plummer wrote the history of the first 50 years

• I’m about ¾ finished with writing the entire history

• Publishing? I’m waiting for input on that

• The District Print Shop doesn’t cut it, although Plummer’s book was printed by the Fullerton Junior College print shop

History of the School DVD

• 1993: Bob Strange created a 35 mm slide show for the 100th anniversary of the school

• I scanned his slides into PowerPoint and edited the slides—taking some out, adding new ones, re-taking some digital photos, inserting new buildings and construction

• 2009: a DVD

Presentation is Everything

• Plummer Auditorium

• All freshmen assembly

• The Wurlitzer organ played by an alum as the student came in and exited

Scaled Down Version

• Presented 7 times in Little Theatre, with freshman English classes coming in by period

• No Plummer Auditorium

• No organ

• At least this time I asked for help, so the custodian wasn’t giving me a board to put across some chairs for the presentation.