Archive · How this archive was built

How this archive was built

Where the material came from, how it was read and organised, and what to keep in mind when using it.

The rule this archive follows

This is an archive, not a marketing site. No T/MC content is left out, filtered or summarised away. Every original photo, map, article, presentation, document and activity record can be found somewhere on this site: in a curated page, in its Complete records table, or in All files. Exact duplicates are listed once, with every place they were found. The only files not copied are the website and database files and system files described below.

Sources

  • The October 2026 download of T/MC’s Google Drive: 20,942 files, about 30 GB, in 88 folders, every one assigned to a collection
  • Earlier downloads of OHATS, the Program Locator and the Map Gallery
  • The October 17, 2026 download of further Drive folders: the 1993–2000 strategy papers (cc-TMC - 1993-1995), the Visual Essays slide decks and PDFs, and the Year-Round Strategy slides and videos. Only files not already in the archive were added; exact copies were left out.
  • The October 24, 2026 download of T/MC’s website, tutormentorexchange.net (Joomla): from the site’s own backup of 19 October 2026, every page (322 published, plus 124 that had been unpublished or removed, marked as such) and the site’s pictures and documents are on the Website 2008–2026 page. The site’s configuration, code, user accounts and database are not part of this archive. 112 links on the old pages point to files that were no longer on the server; 81 of them now point to the copy held elsewhere in the archive, and the rest are marked as missing.
  • The October 18, 2026 download (Extract 1018): annual reports, letters, email newsletters 2000–2020, conference and recruitment-campaign files, research and network analysis, news-story scans, the 1997 Presidents’ Summit files, staff and funding files, ChatGPT notes and more presentations. These are in their own collections (Annual reports, Letters, Newsletters, Conferences, Recruitment, Research) or added to the existing ones. Web pages, website code, databases and system files were left out, files whose names suggest a stored login are kept offline, and exact copies of files already in the archive were not repeated.
  • OHATS activity log: 948 records with every field; the timeline shows the 940 that describe an activity
  • Program Locator: 535 programs with every field (August 2005), and the 2021 program lists
  • Leadership Conference evaluations: 1,242 forms with every rating and comment, summarised as 109 workshops
  • 68 slide decks (1,724 slides) and 109 documents (845 pages), read page by page
  • 290 photographs and graphics in the gallery, 778 distinct maps, and an index of 287 news stories
  • The 2002 library (339 records) and the 2021 library

How the pages were made

  • Text. Scanned letters, plans, clippings and slides were read by OCR so every page can be searched. Typed pages read well; expect some misreadings. Dan Bassill’s handwritten notes are not yet transcribed.
  • Dates and titles. Most dates and titles come from the archive’s own file names and records, and some are approximate.
  • News. Many stories survive in two or three copies (scan, PDF, PowerPoint); the news index lists each story once and links to every original.
  • Maps. Each of the 814 maps in the maps folder was reviewed by eye. The gallery shows all 778 distinct maps, including those made by other organizations; near-identical copies are folded into one and listed in the file table.
  • Photos. The photo gallery is a guided selection. Every one of the archive’s photographs is also shown, at full size, in the collections under All files.
  • Database records. Pages such as the Timeline and Programs show readable summaries, and each has a Complete records table with every field of every row. Rows that exist only in an older copy of a database are included and marked. Six activity rows are spam posted through the online form in 2006; they are kept and marked as such.

How the files are organised

The files folder holds one folder per collection. Inside each, the archive’s own folder names are kept, so a file can be traced back to where T/MC saved it.

Files not copied

At the owner’s request, the code of T/MC’s old websites and online tools (web pages and scripts of the Tutor/Mentor Exchange site, Joomla, Portal2008, OHATS and the Program Locator software) and all database files (.mdb, .accdb, .sql) are not part of this site. The documents, slides, spreadsheets and pictures found with them are kept in the collection Technology and online tools: documents; pictures under 10 KB (buttons and icons) and any file that is an exact copy of one elsewhere in the archive are left out. The records T/MC kept in its databases are published as complete records on the Timeline, Programs, Workshops and Library pages. The originals remain in the archive’s own folders.

System and technical files that cannot be displayed and were only used by computers to show folders or run websites are not copied: Windows and Mac folder files (Thumbs.db, desktop.ini, .DS_Store, “._” files), FrontPage _vti_ folders, web code and settings files (.asp, .aspx, .js, .css, .config and similar), and program installers. The documents, slides and pictures of the old websites are kept in the Technology collection. The originals of all of these remain in the archive’s own folders.

Files held offline

One text file in SNAfiles holds a stored login for a Prezi account. It is preserved unchanged in TMC-Website-restricted, next to the website folder on the archive computer, and is not uploaded.

Things to know

The collections include photos of young people in the programs, program survey forms with contact details, personal letters and the original Program Locator database. Newspaper clippings and published articles are the publishers’ copyright and are kept for archival reference.

This is a static website: it needs no database or server software, and it can be copied, moved or re-hosted as one folder.

Using and citing this archive

Every page has a citation at the foot of the page, and every original file has a Cite button in the file browser and the photo viewer. A citation names the archive, the item, the collection and folder it sits in, and its web address, for example:

Tutor/Mentor Connection Archive. “1997TMC-Vol.Recruitment.Campaign.pdf.” Volunteer recruitment campaigns. https://…/files/recruitment/…/1997TMC-Vol.Recruitment.Campaign.pdf. Accessed October 18, 2026.

Rights

Material created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, Cabrini Connections and their volunteers and staff may be used for education, research and non-commercial purposes with credit to the Tutor/Mentor Connection Archive. Newspaper stories, published articles and maps made by other organizations remain the copyright of their owners and are kept for archival reference. Each collection’s guide states the rights that apply to it.

Permissions

The materials are published with the approval of the participants and partners involved in each event; records of those approvals are held by the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. To report an error, share a memory or ask for an item to be reviewed, email the archive contact, Daniel F. Bassill, at tutormentor2@earthlink.net; see Contact. Every request is read and answered, and originals are always kept.

Data downloads

The complete database records are published as CSV files that open in any spreadsheet program:

Keeping the archive safe

Each time the original files are copied in, a checksum list (checksums-sha256.tsv) records a SHA-256 fingerprint of every file. Comparing a later copy against this list proves that nothing has been changed or lost. The archive is meant to be kept in more than one place: on the web host, on the archive computer, on an external drive, and as a deposited copy with the Internet Archive (archive.org) or a Chicago library.