Student Response

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The Purdy Collection has served as a point of departure for research, analysis, interpretation and creation in an educational context. The initial stages were to catalogue, archive, sort and retouch. This meant devoting many hours of volunteer and paid summer student employment to transform the “analog” content into “digital” files. Once the material was “digitized” it had to be then assembled into a meaningful form for internet access. This is an ongoing process that has to be systematically reviewed and updated to maintain relevancy.

The Dorothy Purdy Collection as of November 2006 is four years old. There have been outdoor photographic installations dedicated to Dorothy Purdy’s personal photographs, her postcard collection and clippings of Girl Guide events and a display of class photographs over a twenty year timespan from Rothesay Consolidated School. The postcard collection served as the basis for an art exhibition of paintings by Rothesay High students which also was featured in the town’s observance of the four hundredth celebration of Champlain’s discovery of the Saint John River.

A summer student employee of the RLM, Lisa Wiggins, created the first website devoted to the Purdy Collection. She was very inspired about Ms. Purdy’s life story and her service with the VAD. In addition to collecting and assembling content for the web site, she created poetry about women serving their country in war time. This and her advocacy on behalf of the handicapped inspired the coordinators of the Youth Apprenticeship Program to award her with the Youth Apprentice of the Year Award.