Prospect Slide Loan Program
The Reference Edition of the Prospect Archive includes 18 slide collections available for loan by educators, researchers, and scholars. The slide collections include a selection of visual and written works by an individual child, typically spanning 5 to 9 years of the child’s school life and the following supporting documents in typescript: The “Introduction to the Reference Edition of the Prospect Archive;” catalogue of the collection; compiled narrative records; and, as available, a selection of written works.
Description of Loan Materials
The list that follows details what is included in the loan package.
"INTRODUCTION TO THE REFERENCE EDITION." From 1983-1985, the members of the Archives Scholars and Fellows Program numbered and organized the works (large and small) of each child in the Reference Edition -- 36 children in all. The "Introduction to the Reference Edition" describes Prospect School as the setting in which the works were made and overviews the multi-media publications (slides, microfiche, typescript) known as the Reference Edition of the Prospect Archives (1985).
COLOR SLIDES of visual art works and some written works are avaliable for all 18 children The slides are duplicates of the originals housed at Special Collections, University of Vermont. The slides are arranged by age as reflected in the Reference Edition number inscribed on each slide. For example: (Iris) 5.2. The parentheses indicate that the name is a pseudonym; the 5 indicates her age when the work was made; the .2 indicates that this is the second piece made in that year that remained at school.
The SLIDE INVENTORY lists the Color Slides by name and number. It is included to assist renters to replace the slides in chronological order before returning them and as a safeguard to ensure that all slides are accounted for.
There is a CATALOGUE of the works of each child in the Reference Edition. It provides a user with a summary of the child's total collection spanning all the years the child attended Prospect and arranged according to prevailing themes, mediums, and motifs; it also reports the total number of visual and written pieces. Following the summary, the same headings and number count are used to describe the child's work for each year the child was in the school. The catalogue helps the user to get a handle on the quantity and kinds of work a child produced and the variations in the child's production from year to year. It is a particular help in balancing variety and continuity when selecting slides for a presentation or for teaching purposes.
NARRATIVE RECORDS for each child, inclusive of daily and weekly records, narrative reports to parents, transition reports when a child moved on from Prospect, summaries of descriptive reviews (if any), observations, and occasional interviews also go with the slides. These records augment the slides by providing a picture of the child within the classroom setting, including the child's interests and choices and involvement in activities such as drama, music, etc. that are not captured in the slides. The records also present an example of how Prospect documented children's growth and learning on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis.
For some children, but not all, booklets of SELECTED WRITINGS are available to augment slides of the child's writings, which are typically relatively few in relation to the child's total production.
Children
The following 18 sets are available for loan. Sets are one box unless otherwise noted. 9 of these sets are also available as part of the online collection.
(Alva)
(Alice)
(Emma) (2 boxes)
(Greg)
(Gus)
(Holly)
(Iris)
(Leo) (2 boxes)
(Meg)
(Mia)
(Mick)
(Misha)
(Neil)
(Noah) (2 boxes)
(Oscar)
(Paul) (2 boxes)
(Sean) (2 boxes)
(Virginia) (2 boxes)
Loan Agreement
Completed Loan Agreements should be sent to Sharon Thayer, sharon.thayer@uvm.edu