The Archive

St David’s physical Archive is conceived as a “living history” asset that adds value to the life-long experience of the school. In 2019 the St David’s embarked on a long-term project to organise its archival stores, identify, index, preserve and make accessible all available records. To this end, a central archival repository was identified on campus. AtoM is the online digital interface with the physical archive. The archive serves the wider St David’s community and through AtoM is accessible both on campus and online to any registered user.
The physical contents of the archive have been organised into broad categories and are in the process of being digitised and described in AtoM. The quality of the digitised images varies according to the quality of the original and to a large extent reflects the technology of the time. In some instances, the archive holds only a proof copy or a damaged copy. Editing of images has been limited to straightening and some cleaning reflecting the history of the item rather than extensive digital enhancement. Users who may hold improved copies in their personal collections are encouraged to offer them to the archive for digitisation to improve our collection.
We would like to acknowledge our appreciation for advice and assistance provided by Dr Mary Reynolds, Archivist at St Stithian's School and to the FSMA (Forum for School Museums and Archives - Gauteng branch).

About Atom

AtoM is an acronym for Access to Memory. AtoM is a fully web based archival description application that is based on International Council on Archives (ICA) standards. As a collaborative project, AtoM aims to provide the international archival community with a free, open source software application to manage archival descriptions in accordance with ICA standards. The goal is to provide an easy to use, multilingual application that is fully web based and will allow institutions to make their archival collections available online.