SPRINGFIELD — A new collection allows residents to teleport back in time by browsing over 400 yearbooks available at the Springfield Central Library and online at the Internet Archive via the Digital Commonwealth of Boston.
The collection makes the library a place where old yearbooks are loved and cherished, Elizabeth McKinstry, a training and programming librarian.
“We’ve received over 400 yearbook donations, with around 250 unique items,” she said.
Librarians say the public response to a call for help has been tremendous.
“It won’t end there,” said Maggie Keane, a reference librarian. “We’re still actively seeking donations, especially from later decades and missing years.”
The first floor at the central library, at 220 State St., offers a curated a display of memorabilia. Glass cases include old yearbooks, class photos, newspaper articles, documents, senior memorabilia and “letterman” patches, McKinstry said.
It was last August that the library asked for Springfield high school yearbook donations to build a community-based collection.
Several volumes arrived from Classical High School and the Springfield Museums. The library also received yearbooks from local teachers, but the collection is still taking shape.
“We have a good way to go,” McKinstry said.
The yearbook archive from Springfield Trade High School is about 80% complete. Of the public schools, Roger L Putnam Vocational-Technical High School is only about 28% complete.
Donated memorabilia and yearbooks at Springfield Central Library for the yearbook digitization project. (Hoang’ Leon’ Nguyen / The Republican)
McKinstry said the library is seeking more donations to close gap years for Putnam and Cathedral High School, among other schools.
“The rest of the schools are about halfway complete,” McKinstry told The Republican. The library is invested in completing the collection so a piece of history is represented and preserved.
Big demand
Yearbooks are highly requested at the library, coming in second to obituaries.
McKinstry said many people have given yearbooks once owned by their loved ones. Donors expressed gratitude to have a place to take them. Some yearbooks were donated because family members could not bear to throw them out.
The library has received inquiries about local history and yearbooks from all over the world.
“A man in France was looking for his mother’s 1931 graduation photo from her senior yearbook from the High School of Commerce,” the library said in a report earlier this month. “He wrote, ‘Seeing my mother’s image, as well as her many school activities, brought tears to my eyes,’” the report said.
West Springfield resident Robert Sarnacki donated a 1963 Technical High School “Tiger” yearbook that belonged to his brother, Tom.
“I was happy to hear I could donate the yearbook, rather than it ending up chopped up somewhere. I always figured someone, somewhere could get some use out of it. I would be a terrible waste not to do what the library is doing,” Sarnacki wrote in a statement.
Big feelings
McKinstry said the project has been more emotional for people than expected.
“Collecting the yearbooks from members of the community has proven to be a very heartwarming and nostalgic experience for everyone involved,” wrote Keane, the reference librarian. “The librarians working on the project have enjoyed hearing the stories behind why people chose to donate either their own yearbooks or yearbooks of loved ones.”
So far, high school yearbooks are most in demand.
Colleges and universities usually have their own digitized collections.
A case of donated memorabilia and yearbooks on display at Springfield Central Library for the yearbook digitization project. (Hoang’ Leon’ Nguyen / The Republican)
To digitize a single yearbook takes minutes, but the collection process demands more time. The library in Boston digitizes yearbooks once a year, McKinstry said.
“So, the process of collecting them and bringing them up to Boston to be processed is much longer,” McKinstry said. “They get to them when they can.”
Full list
A full list of high school yearbooks in the library’s collection is online. If the year is linked, that yearbook can be retrieved electronically. If the year is listed but not linked, the yearbook has been donated but not yet digitized. In that case, a yearbook can be viewed in person at the Central Library.
“If the year is not listed, we don’t have it, and are actively trying to obtain a copy,” McKinstry said.
The Springfield libraries are always collecting historical documents for missing years. Donations can be dropped off at any of the nine library locations.
“All Springfield high school yearbooks are welcome — public, private, or charter,” McKinstry said.
To learn more about the yearbook donations or how to access the collection, call the Springfield Central Library reference desk at 413-263-6828, Extension 213, or email ask@springfieldlibrary.org.
