HISTORY IN THE MAKING: LAUNCH OF AIGLON’S ARCHIVE PROJECT

Aiglon is rapidly approaching its 75th birthday. This means 75 years of history by 2024. 75 years of the unique Aiglon experience, defined by golden threads – such as meditations, skiing and expeditions – which connect thousands of Aiglon students, parents, staff members and the wider community and make lasting impressions.

Currently, reaching our historical archives feels like stepping back in time. We enter through a very heavy door to our old atomic shelter where student drumming lessons take place, and where our physical archives are also housed for safekeeping.

Once inside, a mountain of precious documents meets the eyes. However, in their present manifestation, the documents are still exposed to the weathering of time and a multitude of diverse filing methods over the decades, and cannot be appreciated by many.

It therefore gives us great joy to announce that we have now launched our archive project. An archive manager dedicated to assessing, organising, preserving and enabling access to our shared history has been appointed, and will be supported in the initiative by several students working towards their Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) project.

In this way what lies at the heart of Aiglon, essentially the combined alumni memory, can transcend the ephemeral, the finiteness of paper, and, when captured electronically, will become ‘timeless’.

To ensure the project’s success, vital steps will include:

• Firstly, research on archive guidelines and best practices though the major organisations that oversee archiving, such as the ARA, the National Archives, and the ICA;
• then the physical sifting of our archives (which range from vintage photographs to video clips and written musings from teachers…);
• the in-house digitalisation of relevant files with the help of cataloguing software;
• the conducting of surveys to ascertain exactly what is wanted and how best to process and present that data;
• following on from this, inviting external contributions;
• and finally, mandating an external service provider to facilitate the creation of an online platform embedded within our Aiglon website to give greater access to our immortalised archives.

To make our archives even more vibrant, we will be encouraging contributions from alumni and we will keep you informed when this opportunity arrives.

We hope through this process to have sown the seeds for a very special publication and events showcasing and celebrating Aiglon at 75. Watch this space for more details.