NHS Yearbooks: Newtown’s Back Pages

Library Hopes To Fill In The Gaps Of Its Yearbook Collection

By Jan Howard

The Cyrenius H. Booth Library is seeking donations of Newtown High School yearbooks for its permanent collection.

“We want to have a complete collection of yearbooks from Newtown High,” Library Director Janet Woycik said last week. “We once had them all, but some have disappeared.

“We’re asking residents if they have yearbooks they are willing to donate for the collection,” she said.

Mrs Woycik said the library receives calls frequently requesting information about the high school yearbooks, but in some instances the yearbooks are among those that are missing. In those cases, she said, “I tell them to call the high school, but it would be nice if we had our own collection.”

Mrs Woycik said callers sometimes are seeking information for inclusion in obituary notices.

C.H. Booth Library Reference Librarian Beryl Harrison said calls regarding yearbooks are usually referred to the high school. “Usually they are just trying to track people down they’ve lost track of, or they want to make photocopies of pictures of how people looked back then and of sports teams, for reunions.”

A number of years are missing from the library’s yearbook collection, which is currently housed in the special collections room on the third floor. The books in this room do not circulate, and are available only for use in the library.

The books the library is seeking include the years 1908-1911, 1940, 1942, 1948, 1949, 1952-59, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973-79, 1980-89, 1990-99, and 2000.

The C.H. Booth Library isn’t the only town facility that needs to add to its collection of yearbooks. Newtown High School’s yearbook collection is also incomplete, as is that of The Newtown Bee. There are about a dozen yearbooks missing from The Bee’s collection, though it has duplicate copies of others.

Karen Mann, Newtown High School’s media specialist, said yearbooks from the 1950s and 1960s are among those needed to complete its collection.

“We may have 80 percent of them,” she said. “Every once in a while we write a letter to the editor asking for the donation of particular yearbooks.”  

The high school’s yearbook collection is available to the public weekdays at 2 pm and by appointment if a class is not using them, she said, noting the sociology class uses them to study how society has changed through the years.

There are many reasons why people request use of the yearbooks, Ms Mann said.

She said there have been requests from members of the press to use the yearbooks. “We’ve had several Bruce Jenner requests through the years because of articles written about him.”

 In some cases, if there is a duplicate copy of the yearbook, the high school allows it to be borrowed, Ms Mann said. “We allow them to take a backup copy if we have it. People are very good about returning them.”

In cases where there is no backup copy, she said a copier is available. “If someone wanted to do a color copy and would have to take the yearbook for the day, we try to be as accommodating as possible.”

Caroline Stokes, collections curator for the C.H. Booth Library, said this week that the library has in its collection the first Newtown High School yearbook, which covered the first five years of the school’s existence, from 1902 to 1907.

To donate yearbooks to the C.H. Booth Library, call Director Janet Woycik at 426-4533 or bring them to the library on Main Street.