During my time as a Fifth Year Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, my project was to collaborate with the University Archives and digitize the archives of Scotch’n’Soda Theatre, which goes back until 1938 when the club was founded.
I curated over 120 objects from the archives spanning from 1938 to 1998, and I built a website using CollectionBuilder. I am currently working with Carnegie Mellon to host my website on a more permanent server and I’m collaborating with current members of S’n’S to establish a workflow for the future so this site serves as a living archive of our club’s history.
Scotch’n’Soda Theatre is an organization that is near and dear to my heart--I was president during my junior year and vice president during my sophomore year at CMU. When I was on the executive board, I would get emails from alumni asking about this or that show they were in way back when. Since most of our materials were only physical artifacts in the archives onsite, I wanted to create a digital space for people to be able to look at our club’s strange and quirky history.
What I’ve found throughout this process is that we’ve made leaps and bounds as a club in terms of inclusivity and diversity, especially with the club becoming a very prominently safe space for queer students on campus. In addition to these differences though, I found that theatre kids really haven’t changed through time.
Read more about it in a CMU University Libraries article written about this project!