Archives & Records Center Hosts 4th Graders
In June of 2005 over 100 fourth grade students, their teachers, aids and parents visited the Westchester County Archives & Records Center. Youngsters from the Pequenakonck Elementary School in North Salem and the Greenville Elementary School in the Edgemont School District in Greenburgh were welcomed by the DoIT staff and initiated as young researchers and historians.
The students learned the elements of government records management, the variety of documents stored by Westchester County’s departments, and the importance placed on preserving historical records for researchers to use. Tours were given of the Records Center warehouse, of the secure, environmentally controlled archival vaults and of the reference room used by researchers.
Photos below show the fourth graders tackling their assignments with attention and interest.
Nora Mackenzie, Records Center Manager, introduces North Salem
students and elementary librarian Noel MacCarry to the warehouse work station.
Archives staffer Christine Hogan shows students and teachers how
the historical maps are safely stored in the archive vault room.
Principal Archivist Elaine Massena assists Pequenakonck students in
understanding how to read their copies of the Archives’ historical maps of
North Salem.
Diana Maull of the Archives staff shows the North Salem students tools from
the Bertillon method of criminal identification, the system that was used
during the 1900s at the Westchester County Jail.
Michelle Sands, K-5 Gifted Program Teacher for the Pequenakonck School,
chats with an interested young historian in the making.