14.9.2020

The man behind the archives: Jari Eerola

NEWS

In this interview to mark his retirement, Jari Eerola, the creator of HYY’s archives, discusses his lengthy career at HYY. Eerola retired on 1 August.

 

After a respectable career as HYY’s archivist, Jari Eerola is now shedding light on his 33-year journey with HYY’s history. Before his retirement, Eerola, who started in HYY as assistant to the historian, was the Student Union’s longest-serving employee. However, most students do not directly see the result of the archivist’s important work. What are HYY’s archives, and what does the archivist’s job contain?

‘HYY’s archives are like memory. They tell future generations about the valuable work that different people have done in the Student Union.’

Numerous documents, books and other objects from the Student Union’s 151-year history are neatly organised onto shelves in the basement of Domma, or Domus Academica. HYY’s archives have been Eerola’s life’s work. He considers the archives valuable in themselves, but they also make it possible to check facts and learn from history. With the turnover of volunteers, employees and members of the Board in the Student Union being as high as it is, understanding history is particularly important to avoid having to do the same work twice. At the same time, you can also learn from the past and use that information for the present and the future.

Eerola describes the archivist’s work as free and independent. Even though people’s impression of archives may contain dark shelves and monotony, in reality, each day has been unique and interesting. Various projects in particular have stuck in Eerola’s mind – for example, editing a book on the 100-year history of the New Student House and the conservation of the original working drawings and interior drawings of the Old Student House. The wildest stories in HYY’s history, however, cannot be found in the archives – they live in oral history, including Eerola’s own memories.

 

Thank you, Jari!

 

During his career in HYY, Eerola has met an enormous number of enthusiastic members of the Board, editors of the Ylioppilaslehti magazine, employees and volunteers starting from the 1960s. For him, cooperation with this diverse group of people that has included its fair share of interesting and strong personalities has been rewarding. A couple of times, the relatives of people formerly involved in HYY have also been interested in their late relative’s thoughts and dealings among students.

In Eerola’s view, the joy of working together and a belief in dreams and the power of spoken word have united the people of HYY throughout history. He sees the young people who have been involved in the Student Union as an excellent example of creativity, too: great things have been accomplished even with meagre resources.

Even though Eerola has enjoyed his job and work community, he is also eagerly awaiting his retirement days. He reveals that experience with archiving will prove useful after his career too, as there are things to organise back home as well. He also has book projects and cottage chores in the works, which means that Eerola will not be slowing down any time soon.

The greatest accomplishment of Eerola’s career is, of course, the archives themselves – without his unyielding work, HYY’s history would not necessarily be as organised as it is. However, he is quite happy to leave the archive, which has required countless working hours, into the capable hands of his successor, Ahto Harmo. Eerola’s advice to Harmo is to keep an open mind and be prepared for changes, as technological developments may result in big changes for HYY’s history books, too.

The retiring archivist also has something to say to new students. He encourages everyone to enjoy their time studying, but also to complete their studies without drawing them out too much, as new experiences are waiting for you once more after your studies.

On behalf of the entire Student Union, thank you, Jari, for your work for HYY and the student movement! Without you, students’ memory would be even shorter than it is now.