WHS Archive Project Will be Part of Senior's Legacy

About 500 moments of Westborough High School history were “collecting dust, unprotected” in the school library’s back room, “in piles, askew,” for a while, senior Briana Arnold recalls.

In the not too distant future, classes and community members will have access to media files of these mementos.

Arnold, coincidentally a fifth-generation Westborough resident, led this project, which she expects will conclude at the end of the next school year.

What began with office work during a second semester junior year internship with social studies team Chairman Edward Belbin -- “I was hoping I could sit through his class, maybe learn a little bit more about history, because I like history” -- grew into Arnold organizing, documenting and labeling the items that had been collected by retired WHS Librarian Diane Libby and others.

Libby "was instrumental in starting up the idea of an archives with me," Belbin said.

"Diane also had accumulated a number of important historical items and donated them to the archival collection."

Arnold said that once she started the project, “I found the things very interesting: a lot of old pictures dating back to as early as the late 1800s, and I thought there could be a lot more we could do with the stuff that would show people what was out there."

“I wanted a way to have everybody see it at any time," she said.

Arnold said the initial plan was for her to photograph all of the materials and post them online.

The effort became too much for one person, she said.

WHS library media specialist Anita Cellucci then mentioned a Boston Public Library project that seemed to address this need, Arnold said.

“They had a state grant to basically advertise their facilities for digitizing it, and they were offering free digitizing to anyone who was interested,” she said.

Arnold said she labeled every item, packaged it in an archival sleeve or archival box, and created a marked record of the publication date, authors and description before bringing them to the Boston library in February. She made the marked records last year.

“We have probably three-quarters of the stuff back now,” Arnold said.

“We’re still waiting on some of the bound materials. But once we get all of our stuff back, along with all of the media files for every single item, we’ll then be able” to load all of the media files onto a program that will “coincide with the Westborough High School archive link,” and from there, users could “look at all of these items.”

“It’s going to be awesome, because the public will have access to it at any time. And the teachers at the high school will have access to it at any time, and they can use it for lesson plans.” Arnold said.

“Sociology would be an excellent class.”

Arnold led a discussion of her project with community members May 8 at the Westborough Public Library. She brought a number of the items with her.

Arnold said that during her first year reviewing the material, “I was just so fascinated and infatuated with the information that I took a lot of time to just read over everything.”

“You learn a lot about people who highly participated in Westborough High School, and their impact that they had. But once you get going, you find that you’ll spend all day looking at it, but you know you can’t,” she said.

She spent her senior year focused on tasks, rather than studying the past.

Her family’s connection to that past enhanced her interest in it.

“I live next to my grandparents, four of my cousins, my Dad’s aunt and uncle. We all live on the same street. So, I love my family history as well as Westborough history because they kind of coincide and tie into one another,” she said.

“I initially took the internship with Mr. Belbin hoping I could learn more about Westborough history.

“It’s cool to see my family, as well as a ton of our family friends, (in) old sports pictures and everything. I came across a picture of my grandfather from his basketball team as well as his football team. His football team actually had him and his brother in it. That was pretty cool. I took it to Mr. Belbin and had him scan it for me, e-mail it to me, and then from that, I downloaded it onto my computer, enhanced it a little bit, and ordered photos for him, and gave it to him for his birthday.”

She said she and Belbin will meet with a few students interested in continuing the project next year. The student chosen will continue archiving, ”because we feel like people will (say), ‘Oh, I have this stuff in my attic and my basement.’ We’re more than interested in taking this stuff, digitizing it, and giving it back to them,” Arnold said.

She expects to come back to WHS next winter during her winter break to work on more media files.

“Ideally by the end of the next school year, everything will be online, which will conclude it," said Arnold, who will attend Westfield State University for physical eduction (“Ideally, I’ll become a high school gym teacher”) this fall.