The archives are potentially a gold mine of unique memories. This has been repeatedly proven by many leading schools.
The archives are often the forgotten "asset" on the balance sheet of the school (a £zero value item of magazines, photographs and ephemera!)
Reality, has shown us that when used correctly, they are a vastly underrated treasure trove, unique to the school, that leverages funding and future school cohesion.
The two biggest assets the fundraising development office have at their fingertips are their active alumni database and the archives.
The latter helps increase the former.
When presented through Mercury it allows the school to tap into the power of nostalgia, with exceptional results.
Mercury allows the archives to be proactively used in this new style portal. It also integrates with Graduway, all social media sites, blogs, posts etc
Showcased at IDPE, The SDS Mercury solution takes the digital archives and elevates them as a fundraising/bursary tool and also of doubles up as a marketing/comms/admission solution too, whilst reaching out to the whole Bolton School community.
The concept of SDS Mercury had two primary requirements, attracting new alumni and streamlining and simplifying the systems already in use. It has more than fulfilled both requirements.
As a result of the excellent results for the initial system at MGS and their subsequent ringing endorsement at the recent IDPE, some 20 + schools so far are planning versions of MGS-Life using the SDS Mercury platform
In essence, SDS Mercury fuses together, enhances and simplifies many systems already in use at schools.
It is a celebration of the archives combined with stories/blog posts of today which will become the archives of tomorrow
Social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogs, School Calendar, school website news etc
It fully integrates the MIS & Alumni systems of Choice, a solution which sits between the Digital Archives and your Alumni MIS Solution
SDS Mercury is an intelligent and highly effective resource which drives and aids….:
• Fundraising & Bursaries
• School Marketing and Admissions
• great communications and PR
The School Foundation Community:
• This is an interactive multimedia product which is aimed at recapturing the memories of the alumni, in whatever format they exist...
• (Archives, born digital, audio & video, written, artifacts, oral histories, timelines etc)
• pupils, alumni, teachers & staff (past & present) inc spouses of, the local community, historians and researchers, etc.
The Archives, including:
• Photographs, school magazines, drama & concert programmes, speech days and school fêtes, timetable, diaries, newsletters and Oral Histories etc
Teaching & Learning Resource.:
• DofE participation and modules
• Creative writing & curation
• Handling of resources, classification, meta data, series etc
• Research (Roll of honour, google maps, history of the school)
• Archive Club
Social Media
• In addition, to proving to be a highly successful asset to the development team, SDS Mercury allows all social media posts now to be recorded and stored for future archiving.
(including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube).
Integration
• All are Integrated seamlessly into a powerful highly effective interface, that allows simple interaction over many areas simultaneously.
Born Digital Archives and Digital Preservation
• SDS Mercury also kicks start your strategy for the Born Digital Archive and digital preservation.
(e.g. all those posters, events, tours, matches over the last 15+ years which have never made their way formally to the archives in a printed format.
• All material posted past and present can ultimately be permanently preserved and become part of the School’s history.
This would act as a single access portal including marketing solutions.
A system that assists with:
• Admissions
• Current School Life
• The local community and parents
• The Alumni
• Social History