Have you ever wondered where we find our inspiration for Throwback Thursday? The answer is the Scholastic Archive, which houses all Scholastic products published since the company was founded in 1920! This includes our books, magazines, teaching resources, Book Clubs flyers, and technology (including what some may consider “vintage” technology, like cassettes, CD-ROMs, and VHS tapes). As you can imagine, this makes the Archive the perfect place to go on a treasure hunt for bookworms like me.
For today’s throwback, Scholastic Librarian Deimosa Webber-Bey and I looked through pictures of the Archive’s renovation process, which took place three years ago. As part of the Scholastic HQ renovation (in which the building was completely remodeled from top to bottom), the Archive got a new look with improved shelving. In 2016, our librarians moved over 150,000 items to make room for the installation of high-density (read: moving) shelves, which made more efficient use of the Archive space. The Scholastic Archive now contains every one of our products under the sun, with our librarians cataloguing every new item as we speak!
Take a look at the renovation process below:
June 2016: The Archive with stationary shelving before renovation
December 2016: The Archive in with all shelves removed for new design
February 2017: In the middle of installing high-density shelves
April 2017: The newly renovated Archive with high-density shelving. According to Deimosa, this allowed us to sacrifice only 40% of our footprint while maintaining 100% of our linear shelf space.
June 2019: The Scholastic Archive in present-day, where you’ll find me lurking between the shelves looking for items for the latest Throwback Thursday post!
Special thanks to Gina Asprocolas and the Scholastic librarians for their help with this series!
Deimosa Webber-Bey and Raisa Masood
