Continuing a project that began with yearbooks from what was then known as Red Bank High School, the Red Bank Public Library has now turned its attention to converting the annual volumes of Red Bank Catholic High School to digital format. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

The library recently won a $1,500 grant from the Monmouth County Historical Commission to convert RBC yearbooks from analog to digital format, library Director Elizabeth McDermott tells redbankgreen. That’s enough to cover 10 conversions, she said.

The yearbooks are “the Facebook of yesteryear,” and highly valued locally, McDermott said.

The library is hoping RBC alums or their heirs will donate or loan yearbooks for the project, she said.  Already digitized are RBC books from the following years:
1945
1946
1947
1958
1966
1968
1969
1970
1971
1973
1974
1975

In-hand and awaiting conversion, are books from 1953, 1978, 1979 and 1980.

In order not to step on the rights of the publishers, the library is not yet transferring books published after 1980, McDermott said.

Borrowed yearbooks are returned to their owners as soon as the conversions take place, which may be a matter of weeks, she said.

The effort expands on one begun in 2015 involving yearbooks from Red Bank High School and its successor, Red Bank Regional. Check out redbankgreen’s coverage, which includes a priceless photo of a teenaged Pasquale Menna, now the town’s mayor.

All the RBR yearbooks from 1922 to 1980 have been digitized except those from 1925, 1928, 1937, 1939 and 1945, all but one of which (1925) McDermott said she needs copies of, as well as all prior to 1920.  In-house awaiting conversion are December and June, 1921; June 1925 and several others from the early ’20s, when the books were quarterly, she said.

Meantime, the RBHS/RBR collection can be found online here.