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As part of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week the foyer of the Shatford Library is filled with relics of PCC’s past. The school’s first yearbook, marching band apparel, photographs of what the campus once was and a line-up of mascots are all up for viewing.

Before PCC was the home of the Lancers, the Bulldogs reigned supreme; even further back in time a Pirate was PCC’s mascot of choice.

In those days, PCC was known as Pasadena Junior College and shared a campus with Pasadena High School. With its participation in Preservation Week, the library staff is working to create a greater awareness of PCC’s history and the tactics used to preserve and pass that on.

“It is an event designed to call attention to the importance of preserving historical documents, stories, and local histories,” said Jared Burton, a library technician and one of the primary coordinators of the event.

As part of Preservation Week, on Friday the library and the Retirees Association will be hosting “Capture the Memories,” where retired faculty and staff are invited to help identify the people and events in some of the many historical photographs within the library’s vast collection, according to Burton.

This also corresponds with the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration, an effort to transfer Pasadena’s historical documents into digitalized files.

These digitalized images and documents can be found at pasadenadigitalhistory.com.

“[Documents and photographs] will decay over time so it is important to digitalize them now before they do,” Burton said while also emphasizing the importance of using archival tactics to preserve the hard copies of documents, memorabilia and books.

“We need to do this for future generations. We need to pass on our heritage,” said Manya Hakopyan, PCC’s resident archivist.

Hakopyan is the primary caretaker and organizer of PCC’s archive, a closet-like room in the back of the library’s third floor. Here one can find every issue of the Courier newspaper, The Chronicle – the predecessor to the Courier that dates back to 1915- memorabilia, photographs and other historical documents.

This room was picked through to fill the cabinets of the foyer to showcase of Preservation Week and PCC’s rich history. Also, multiple glass cabinets were installed on the third floor of the Library in order to further showcase the treasure trove of books and documents.

“A big part of preservation week is not just keeping these things locked up in a dusty room. It is about sharing them, and passing them on from generation to generation,” Burton said.

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