Donate Your Yearbooks
Would you like to be a part of preserving Springfield History? The Library needs your help!
We want to fill in our very incomplete yearbook collection, and then put scanned copies online for anyone to access freely.
If you have a yearbook from any High School in Springfield, Massachusetts – public, private, or charter – from any year, and are willing to donate it to the library, just drop it off at one of our nine locations in Springfield.
It’s okay if it has writing in it, or it’s not in perfect condition. We’ll add all usable copies to our collection for people to browse, and send as much of the collection as we can to be scanned by Digital Commonwealth at the Boston Public Library.
Then Springfield’s yearbooks will be up on the internet for anyone to look at, any time, from anywhere!
So please look for that old yearbook, and give it to us so we can create a yearbook archive for Springfield! We appreciate your help with this important project to preserve our community’s history.
If you have any questions about this project, you can reach us at 413-263-6828, x213, or ask@springfieldlibrary.org, or fill out our Ask A Librarian form, here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Why yearbooks?
A. After newspaper articles, yearbooks are the most common local history reference request we get. We have a very small, patchy collection at present, and we would love to have a complete, accessible collection, that can be viewed at Central Library during all open hours!
Q. Can you just borrow my yearbook, scan it, and give it back to me after you’re done with it?
A. Not at this time. Getting these yearbooks cataloged, organized, and sent off for digitization will take close to a year, and we’re worried we might have trouble finding you again. Also, we want people to be able to come to the library and see yearbooks in person. But if you want to talk to us further about your yearbook, you can reach us using the contact information above, and someone from the yearbook team will reply!
Q. What if you get a lot of duplicates?
A. We’ll keep them! We’ll send the best one off to be digitized, but we will not throw out any yearbook that’s not already extremely damaged. It’s common for libraries to keep multiple copies of items that are hard to replace.
Q. How soon will all the yearbooks be online?
A. We hope within 12 months. This will depend on many factors not in our control, though, like the wait list at Digital Commonwealth, and how quickly donations come in, and how complete our collection becomes.
Q. Are you considering digitizing other Springfield documents?
A. Yes! Some of the older City Directories were digitized several years ago, and we hope to do more after the yearbook project. But yearbooks are by far the most popular item people would like to see online.