SHELF LIFE — BEHIND THE SCENES IN KING’S ARCHIVES The archives hold a multitude of stories: we join University Librarian Tracy Lenfesty and alum Cassandra Burbine as they work to reveal them
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TIDINGS | WINTER 2024
“I’M TRYING TO THINK WHERE I could have put it because I know I didn’t hide it,” says Cassandra Burbine, BA(Hons)’23. “When I left, I needed to clear all of the tables for Orientation Week because they bring the students in here to show them some of the library’s older manuscripts.” Burbine is looking for a scrapbook belonging to the Alexandra Society, namesake of Alexandra Hall. Active from 1902-2002, the society began as a women’s auxiliary to King’s College in Windsor. Renamed in 1910 after Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward
VII, it was active in fundraising in support of the College, Church and greater community. Burbine recalls leaving the scrapbook on a library cart. The book was one archival document of many given to the library by the society. Burbine read it during the summer of 2023 while working as an Archives Assistant with University Librarian Tracy Lenfesty. Now in her first year of the master of information program at Dalhousie, Burbine has come back to King’s one day a week to finish the project. “I didn’t know anything about the