In the summer of 2008 Rosalie C.F. Rippey, Director of Communications and Marketing, and Stephanie Brunner Lynge, Associate Director of Church and Community Relations, contacted members of the UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Science about aiding in the process of arranging and storing the extensive Cunningham Children???s Home archives. The collection, described in further detail below, consisted of photographs, business papers, audio material, video material, and other media dating as far back as the inception of CCH more than 100 years ago. The collections of photographs, mainly of past residents and staff at CCH, hold particular importance both for promotional considerations and for the memories and emotional legacies of former alumni and their families. For returning alumni and family members, these photographs often constitute the sole or primary window into the childhoods of CCH residents. The entirety of the collection is spread over three locations, the core collection being located on the CCH campus. The photography collection had been only loosely organized by the identity of the cottage, the event, chronology, or some combination thereof. In addition, photographs were stored in simple plastic binders, not suitable for preservation. Directors Rippey and Lynge inquired as to whether or not the archival program or the community informatics program might be able to aid in the creation of a system for more consistent arrangement and access of materials, recommendations for storage, and a procedure for the intake and outtake of materials within the collection.
The project of organizing and developing recommendations for maintenance was offered as one of several projects available to students in the LIS 490 Community Engagement class. Paolo P. Gujilde, a graduate student within the LIS program specializing in community archives, had already served as a contact with CCH. Graduate students Rebecca Crist and Logan Moore additionally chose to partner with CCH for their semester project in the class. (For more background information, see Appendix II.)unpublishednot peer reviewe
