During my time as webmaster for the Department of Microbiology & Immunology (from 1995 - 2009) I became the unofficial archivist for the Department. An online depository of the archives was established -- in order to make the material more readily accessible and for staff member to make contributions.
The source materials were departmental records, personal collections of photos from staff, clippings from scrapbooks and newspaper articles. To highlight some of the more significant events and to put them into the context of the place and the times, a guidebook was written. A hardback printed version of the web guidebook was printed in October, 2010 (about 100 copies) entitled: "A History of the Microbiology Department 1950 - 2010". The overall goal of the project was to record the social history of the Department, about the staff and students and how their careers and activities became woven into the fabric of the Department.
The Department had a unique character and an esprit de corps and certain personalities loomed larger than life. It was also evident that many of the staff that were appointed in the late 60's and early 70's would soon be retiring and a whole new culture by the 'young Turks' would emerge. As it turned out the online archives lapsed from neglect and the printed guidebook gathered dust on the bookshelves.
BUT don't despair, dear reader, the entire online archive can still be viewed: click here and a pdf version of the guidebook is available (subscribe to the blog - on the right-hand side).
Some instructions and explanation of the online archive is required. It was developed in the days of Dreamweaver and much of the spreadsheet was hand-coded in HTML. It is not smartphone friendly and is best viewed on a desktop computer.
Date - the timeline
The people - name of the person who joined the Department
Event - what happened
Comment - more information on the event
The Science - something newsworthy
Significance - of relevance to the Department
The times - news events occurring locally or overseas
News events - milestone world events
Reference - profiles and background material, usually photos or video
In many cases the categories become blurred but the timeline remains accurate.
How to View the Archives
Clicking on a link in the spreadsheet will result in opening a new window -- this should be 'closed' before proceeding to another link otherwise your screen will soon become a mess of opened windows.
In some cases a photo library window will open and after clicking the miniature photo, a larger version of the photo will appear with a 'menu' in the upper left-hand corner. Click within the menu to manoeuvre to other photos or back to the index.
Enjoy trolling the archives -- click here .