Cataloguing the Classroom: The Dundee School Archives Project

Find out about the Schools Project being undertaken by staff and volunteers at Dundee City Archives

Over the past 8 years Dundee City Archives staff and volunteers have been working on a exciting project to list and index school records they hold. Often one of the most requested records in the archives, we thought it was about time that these records were catalogued and made more accessible to the public. With over 120 collections of schools past and present, this was not an easy job.

The project is in 3 parts. The first was to research the schools that have existed in Dundee and a bit about their background. This list eventually became an online guide and a book version which was published in 2022.

The second strand was the cataloguing of school records, mostly carried out by staff but with the help of some volunteers.

The third part was to index all of the school admission registers up to 1924. These records are closed for 100 years so we can only index up to this date. This was a mammoth task by our volunteers, which was only completed in early 1926. These indexes will be updated by our volunteers every few years.

The guide, catalogues and indexes are being launched during this event. Come along to hear about the project, how you can use the resources and the interesting tales our staff and volunteers discovered along the way.

This event will follow the Friends of Dundee City Archives AGM, which should finish at 12 noon. If the AGM overruns you may need to take a seat outside the hall until we are ready to let people in.