Lisa Laughy November 3rd, 2011
For those of you with an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad with iBooks installed, you have the option to download specially designed eBooks based on OLDA online exhibits. These eBooks are formatted and designed to be viewed using the iBooks reader, available free through the Apple App Store, but can also be read using any eBook reader that is compatible with the ePub file format.
OLDA eBooks are available for the following exhibits:
Access the links above while on your iBooks activated device and click the “Open in iBooks” button that appears. This will automatically load your eBook onto your iBook bookshelf. You will then be able to access your OLDA eBook any time and anywhere you go, allowing you to read about the history of St. Paul’s School in these brief presentations, richly illustrated with photographs from the St. Paul’s School archives collection.
Technical questions? Use the contact form located HERE.
Access OLDA eBooks using the links above or on the permanent page located HERE.
Tags: Archives, Early Libraries of St. Paul's School, eBook, eBook reader, eBooks, ePub, iBook, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Ohrstrom Library Digital Archives, OLDA, Places of Invention, The Form Plaques of St. Paul's School
David Levesque January 5th, 2011
In celebration of Matthews Family Hockey Day on Saturday, January 8th, as well as the arrival of black ice and a beautiful outdoor hockey rink on Lower School Pond, Ohrstrom Library has on display in the Upper Level display cases an exhibit of historic photographs and materials from the SPS Archives entitled “St. Paul’s School : the Cradle of American Hockey.”
In St. Paul’s : the Life of a New England School, August Heckscher writes this of hockey at SPS:
At first it had been an informal scrimmage on the ice, gradually settling into a more organized contest with eleven men to a side, playing with a square piece of wood for a puck. In 1896, the Canadian version of the game, with seven players on each side, was adopted. That same year the School team played for the first time on the fabled St. Nicholas Rink in New York against a group of alumni. The alumni won 3-1. But the encounter was a spectacular event, and the School was off upon a long career of hockey playing, which was to make it known in the sports world and to fill many of the places on the top college teams with skaters trained upon the Millville ice.
You are invited to take a moment upon your next visit to Ohrstrom Library to view this exhibit created with materials from the SPS Archives, in celebration of the long and illustrious history of hockey at SPS.
Tags: Archives, black ice, Hockey, Lower School Pond, Matthews Family Hockey Day, Ohrstrom Library, St. Paul's School, William R. Matthews
Lisa Laughy December 2nd, 2010
The November launch of the redesigned website not only provides a new look for Ohrstrom Library’s web presence, it also debuts a completely new online resource for the St. Paul’s School Archives. The Ohrstrom Library Digital Archives, or OLDA for short, takes the Archives’ online presence to a more dynamic level, and promises to grow into an even richer browsing experience as the online content expands. The function of this new Archives web component is described on the OLDA home page:
The OLDA website has been designed specifically to generate a sense of discovery for the user, establishing relationships between images through informed descriptive methods. Each image page provides a variety of browsing opportunities – through tagged links arranged by subject, Form year, Rectorship, and other classifications, as well as technical metadata about the digitized image presented online. Selected images are curated into themed exhibits that expand the information of individual item descriptions. In addition to tagged browsing, all images can be searched using the search box located in the header, and each image page provides a place for users to contribute tags to increase the knowledge base.
OLDA was developed using WordPress web software. Although primarily associated with blogging, this open-source software is also an incredibly powerful content management system. Through extensive customization OLDA has been developed to function as both a browser friendly website and a cataloging interface that follows established guidelines for best practices in archival description.
As the process to digitize the photo collection moves forward images will be selected from the over 30,000 photos in the archives to be included in OLDA. Each additional tagged image will add to the browsing experience, creating greater connections across more images and expanding this online visual narrative of the history of St. Paul’s School.
Bookmark OLDA today and visit often to see what new information you can discover about something old from the St. Paul’s School Archives.
Tags: Archives, Ohrstrom Library Digital Archives, St. Paul's School
Lisa Laughy June 8th, 2010
As construction continues on Dunbarton Road and the new Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science, it brings to mind other major construction projects from the history of St. Paul’s School. Although difficult to tell from inside or outside of the New Chapel, an entire section was added to the nave forty-two years after original construction began. The images below depict the expansion at its most dramatic point:
In 1928 the New Chapel was expanded to accommodate the increasing number of students at St. Paul’s School. The Sesquicentennial Exhibit offers this description of the photos:
In 1928 the Chapel was deconsecrated and workmen began to slice through the brick walls. The School held its collective breath as the eastern end of the vast structure, seemingly too narrow to hold itself erect, was slid upon tracks to its new location. The task of reconstruction then went forward as the void between the two parts of the old building was filled with Gothic tracery.
See if you can spot this particularly brave fellow in the picture above!
Tags: Archives, construction, New Chapel, St. Paul's School
Lisa Laughy May 13th, 2010
Dunbarton Road, once called New Dunbarton Road, is undergoing construction as part of the site preparation for the building of the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science. Rectory Road, the original Dunbarton Road, was once the main route from Concord to Dunbarton and beyond. It wasn’t always the quiet roadway through the center of the grounds that it is today, and by the early years of the 20th century the increase in automobile traffic had become a menace. The New Dunbarton Road was opened in June of 1920 as a way to re-direct traffic away from the center of the grounds.
The images below were discovered in the Archives as part of a personal photo album given by an unknown donor. The photo album consists of several dozen black and white photographs of construction at SPS during the first few decades of the 20th century.
Clearing the way: A team of work horses is used to remove rocks from the road. The corner of the Red Barn can be seen on the left.
Grading the road: Alumni House is on the left and the Red Barn is on the right. The view is looking toward the entrance to the School.
Heavy metal: A close-up of the steam roller seen the previous image.
Read more about the history of the New Dunbarton Road in this Fall 2008 Alumni Horae article (PDF file) by clicking HERE.
Tags: Archives, construction, Dunbarton Road
