About

BACKGROUND

The information presented on this website represents the culmination of work conducted (at a leisurely pace) over a four-year period, from 2015 to 2019.

In late 2015, while on a visit to Guyana, I dropped by the Queen’s College Library to take a look at some of the old magazines.  The collection was well-maintained and easily accessible; however, there were noticeable gaps in the collection.  As I reviewed the available publications, the occasional thoughts that had previously crossed my mind about the need for a digital collection resurfaced.  If it existed, such a tool could help in the preservation of the collection and, given the geographic dispersion of Queen’s College alumni, would make the publications conveniently accessible anywhere in the world.  This time, I decided to do something about it.

Before I left Guyana, I shared my aspiration with the QC Assistant Librarian, and was sufficiently persuasive that she allowed me to take eight magazines, with my promise that they would be returned intact on my next visit.  Since at that time I had no idea how I was going to accomplish my self-assigned task, this was definitely a leap of faith.

Over the next several months, I sporadically researched options for getting the publications scanned.  Eventually, I consulted with a bookbinding company with a practice in the restoration of books.  The expert examined the books, and pointed to rusted staples and deterioration of the bindings as causes for concern.  He proposed a procedure of restoration: disbinding, mending, and then rebinding each book.

The disbinding process involved the removal of the existing binding, then cutting the smallest amount of material from the binding edge necessary to create individual sheets and a clean edge for rebinding.  After the individual sheets were created, the documents could be scanned very easily before the process continued.  Rebinding was done using archival, library quality glue, the same process of restoration used by the bookbinder for its institutional clients such as university libraries and churches.  The work was completed on the first batch with excellent results.  As a bonus, the company advised that the digital version provided great flexibility in what could be done in the future.  For example, the book could be “republished” in a coffee table format, or several could be combined and bound in one volume, such as by decade.  While beyond the scope of my project, the picture of the example I had the company prepare illustrates the potential.

My next visit to Guyana was in May of 2016, enabling me to return the borrowed books to the Queen’s College Library.  Because of the restoration, the books I had borrowed were now in much better condition, and the librarians were just as excited at the example of the “republished” example I was able to show them.  With this progress, there was very little hesitation in allowing me to take the remaining books.

The remaining books consisted of originals that had always been held by the library plus a significant number of photocopies that were part of the collection of documents and papers recently donated to the library by Laurence Clarke’s estate.  The originals underwent the same restoration and scanning process used for the initial set; however, I was reluctant to proceed with work on the photocopies without first exhausting efforts to find originals.  In addition, even with the inclusion of the photocopies, there were still significant gaps.  My hypothesis was that there was probably a connection between the missing publications and the 1997 fire, and that I would have to survey alumni in the hope that individuals might have personal copies to fill in the gaps.

One of the first people I contacted was Clarence Trotz, reasoning that first as an alumnus and then as headmaster in the 1970s, he would surely have some publications in his personal collection.  Mr. Trotz’s reply, in part, was as follows:

“ I was very heartened to receive your e-mail and to discover that someone was attempting to ensure that the records of our alma mater would be available to posterity when the annals  came to  be written.  You might or might not know that there has been mention many times before of the need for our records to be microfiched when that was one of the few ways available to make copies of voluminous records, but alas, this, as we know, never happened, and to make things worse, the devastating fire of 1997 intervened and took its devastating toll.  Had the suggestion been taken up when it was made, we might have had faithful records to offer.  Fortunately, however, some of these records should still be available at the University of Guyana library, since they were made custodians of all our records that were available at the time (in 1976 or thereabouts while I was Headmaster).  The offer of looking after them was made to me by Joel Benjamin, who had been a member of staff some time before then, to take charge of them with a view to preserving them against deterioration.”

Naturally, this was very encouraging information, and I followed up with the University of Guyana.  I was able to confirm very quickly that the publications were held by the Caribbean Research Library, part  of the University of Guyana Library system.  I immediately initiated negotiations to get access to their holdings for the project.  It took more than a year, but ultimately I was successful in borrowing all the magazines in the collection and creating electronic versions.  The Caribbean Research Library ended up with books that were in much better condition than at the start of the process.  In addition, there was a big BONUS, an almost complete collection of the Queen’s College Lictor, spanning the period from first publication in 1950 up to the date of transfer in 1978.  The Lictor was not something that was even on my radar screen, but I was obliged to jump on the opportunity.

The combination of the QC and UG library materials closed many of the gaps, but several remained.  In addition, even when a document was available, sometimes the only option was a photocopy, either from the UG library or the Laurence Clarke collection held by the QC Library.  In this regard, we have to be very thankful for Laurence Clarke’s work in the 1990s that resulted in him retaining photocopies of the documents he used in his research.

As the scanning activity was winding down, I started to evaluate various options for making the information available on the internet.  Earlier this year, a Guyanese firm, GxMedia, headed by Girendra Persaud, was retained to develop a website to host the material.  Even as this work was progressing, a new source of material emerged, in the form of a bound volume including all the publications from the decade of the 1910s.  This was a significant contribution to the effort, as it made available originals of twenty publications covering this period, in contrast to a photocopy of only one previously available out of twenty.  The source of the book is explained by Claude Phillips, an alumnus who attended Queen’s from 1943 to 1948.

“As mentioned earlier, the book on Queen’s College was purchased originally by my friend’s father, Herbert Dennis Field, who attended QC in the early 1900s. My friend, Roland Dennis Field and I, went through Queen’s together and, prior to his death in 1993, he passed the book on to me.

 Subsequently, I felt it would be a great addition to the Library at QC and donated it to the School in the Field’s name.”

NEXT STEPS

Now that the magazines and Lictors are easily available, I expect they will be reviewed by a much wider audience.  My hope is that the story about the bound volume from Claude Phillips will repeat itself, i. e., alumni will be prompted to search their archives for personal copies that could contribute to two goals: first, to fill in remaining gaps, and second, to replace lower quality photocopies or originals with scans from higher-quality original publications.

ENJOY!

Rod Fletcher
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
October, 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  • Queen’s College Library, Georgetown, Guyana
    • Nichola Nelson – Librarian
    • Mechell Griffith – Assistant Librarian
  • Mr. C. I Trotz – Guelph, Ontario, Canada
  • The University of Guyana Library
    • Gwyneth George, AA (Mrs.), University Librarian
    • The Caribbean Research Library
      University of Guyana
      Turkeyen Campus

      • Syndrene Harris, Head (ag.), Caribbean Research Library
      • Donnette Washington, Senior Assistant Librarian
  • Claude Phillips – Pickering, Ontario, Canada
  • Dr. Laurence Clarke Estate (Permission to post Queen’s College of Guyana: Records of a Tradition of Excellence (1844 – 1994)
  • GxMedia – Girendra Persaud