Archives

Mazenod College has had an interesting history since it accepted the first 79 students in February 1967 whilst it was based at St Joseph’s Primary School, Springvale and the College Archives are the custodians of that history. Indeed, some of Mazenod’s historic milestones include employing its first female teacher and having Cardinal Cooray bless and open the College in 1968. Mazenod was the first boys’ school in Victoria to have carpet throughout the building and won its first EIS Swimming Premiership in 1979. The first computer was installed in 1980, the first musical was staged in 1981 and the first student mission to Indonesia occurred in 1982. The Silver Jubilee Mass was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1991 and more recently the 50th Anniversary in 2017.

The College Archives also has an information management component which oversees the retention and storage of all permanent records (hardcopy and electronic) created by Mazenod College in the course of its operation.

Although 2020 has been an eventful and challenging year, the College Archives proved its agility and responsiveness by successfully adapting to the changed circumstances. The fact that many of our records are stored electronically or on an external hard drive meant we were fully prepared for the inevitable COVID-19 lockdowns.

One of the objectives of the College Archive is to promote the history of Mazenod College and this has been accomplished by updating archival displays, posting regularly on social media, providing stories for the College Newsletter as well as collaborating with key stakeholders.

A major achievement this year was the digitisation of the entire collection of the annual school magazine and the Mazenodian from the year 1969 to 2019. This large project was completed by our Assistant Archivist, Lachlan Stuart. Moving forward, we plan to digitise the entire collection of Mazenod Newsletters which have been published since 1973.

Peter Marinick