Any potential donation of historical materials should be discussed with the department’s staff in advance of the gift. External (non-University) donors are required to complete a Deed of Gift form. Having accurate and thorough documentation of donations is beneficial for our repository as well as for researchers. This form can be completed online or downloaded and filled out as a PDF.
Please call (208) 885-0845 or email libspec@uidaho.edu to discuss any potential donations of archives, personal papers, photographs, and/or select publications to Special Collections in the University of Idaho Library.
Special Collections and Archives collects faculty papers to preserve the institutional history of our university. It is important to document how decisions were made, how policies evolved, and how the university functioned as an organization over time. Our primary focus is on materials that document your role in the university’s governance, administration, and institutional life. We are most interested in materials that show how you contributed to shaping the university as an institution: your service on committees, leadership of programs or departments, involvement in policy development, and engagement in matters that affected the university community. These materials help future researchers understand how the University of Idaho operated, evolved, and responded to challenges over time.
We are also interested in discipline-specific scholarly materials when they align with the U of I’s research strengths and regional collecting areas, such as environmental studies, natural resources, agriculture, and other fields central to the university’s mission and the state’s history. Scholarly, literary, and artistic work of national or international recognition or acclaim, produced during a faculty member’s time at U of I, is also appropriate for our collection. Additionally, as a major historical repository for the state of Idaho, we collect materials about Idaho’s history, culture, environment, and communities, regardless of academic discipline. Scholarly materials outside these areas are typically better preserved through disciplinary archives, research libraries, or professional organizations in your field.
The guidelines below will help you identify which materials from your career best align with the collecting interests of the university archive. We ask all prospective donors to schedule a consultation with an archivist in advance of transferring any materials. This helps both parties identify the most appropriate materials for acquisition by the archives.
Please contact us with questions or when you are ready to schedule a consultation with a Library archivist at libspec@uidaho.edu or 208.885.0845.
Focus on materials that document your contributions to the university as an institution and your role in shaping its policies, programs, and community rather than routine activities. Consider what would help future researchers understand how the university functioned, made decisions, and evolved during your time here. When in doubt about correspondence, prioritize letters that involve substantive discussions about institutional matters, policy development, or significant university issues. For research materials related to the University of Idaho’s strengths or to Idaho itself, include enough documentation that someone could understand your methods and approach. Materials that document the process, context, and unique observational record of research are valuable, while materials that duplicate the published scholarly record are not. Similarly, materials offering unique documentation of Idaho, like original observations, data, perspectives, or records not available elsewhere, are most valuable for our role as a state historical repository.
| More Valuable | Less Valuable |
|---|---|
| Materials documenting institutional service, governance, and decision-making | Routine administrative paperwork like meeting agendas without your annotations |
| Correspondence about university policies or procedures | Duplicates of widely available publications |
| Administrative records for programs or departments, particularly from leadership | Routine office files like supply catalogs, mass mailings or promotional materials |
| Materials showing institutional change or disputes | Personal materials like financial records or correspondence unrelated to work |
| More Valuable | Less Valuable |
|---|---|
| Original scholarly, literary, or artistic work of national or international significance | Published books and articles already available through the library |
| Teaching materials that represent innovative approaches, curriculum development, or course materials that document pedagogical evolution over time | Routine course materials such as standard syllabi, routine assignments and exams, and student work |
| Correspondence between peers about news or issues within the discipline | Correspondence about routine manuscript preparation |
| Documentation of particular research methods and approach | Subject files of copied sources |
| Field notebooks and research journals, or a sampling of photographs related to field research | |
| Original data, measurements, and observations |
| More Valuable | Less Valuable |
|---|---|
| Field notebooks and research journals, and a sampling of photographs related to field research | Published books and articles already available through the library |
| Original data, measurements, and observations | Correspondence about routine manuscript preparation |
| Primary sources such as diaries or personal papers acquired in the process of researching | Duplicate copies of widely available Idaho materials |
| Photos of Idaho, such as landscapes, communities, people, events, environmental conditions, or cultural life | Subject files of copied sources |
| Correspondence with Idaho residents, organizations, or institutions related to the research | |
| Oral history recordings or transcripts with Idaho subjects | |
| Materials documenting Idaho-specific events, policies, or controversies not widely available to the public | |
| Maps, charts, or visual materials depicting Idaho geography, demographics, or other data not widely available to the public |
A primary function of the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives is curation and preservation of a permanent record of institutional history and accomplishments. The Library’s archival department has, for decades, collected the written and photographic evidence of how the university operates, what students and staff experience during their time here, and how the work of the university has extended beyond the bounds of campus. The archival record is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather a representative sample of materials produced by and about University of Idaho. Storage limitations and staff capacity require that all possible additions to the University Archive be carefully evaluated for enduring value and institutional significance.
FSH 1470 outlines the general purpose of the University Archive. “It is the university’s policy that all records of significant value for understanding the university’s history and the history of its subunits are permanently retained, appropriately stored, and made accessible. Such records may be on paper or in some sort of digital format. They include, but are no means limited to: all official publications of the university or unit (these documents are also subject to the State of Idaho’s state depository law), pictures documenting the people or activities of the university or unit, records documenting significant changes in people or activities of the university or unit. These documents provide primary source material relating to the administrative, academic, legal, fiscal, social, and cultural interaction of individuals, departments, and programs of the university since its inception.” It further outlines that the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives is the “unit designated as the custodian of archival material,” except when the originating unit maintains its own archive.
APM 65.02 further defines an archival record as an “Inactive Record that has permanent or historic value and is not required to be retained in the office in which it was originally generated… Each Office of Record shall transfer inactive records of permanent or historical value to the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives.”
Archivists in the University Library acknowledge that what constitutes “historical value” is subjective and difficult to define. To help campus units and individual faculty or staff determine the relative need to preserve materials, we provide guidelines on the following rubric.
Personnel records, particularly those of a sensitive nature, should not be transferred to the University Archive. It is the responsibility of originating units to adhere to all required records retention and destruction schedules.
| More Valuable | Less Valuable |
|---|---|
| Materials documenting institutional service, governance, and decision-making | Routine administrative paperwork like meeting agendas without your annotations |
| Correspondence about university policies or procedures | Duplicates of widely available publications |
| Administrative records for programs or departments, particularly from leadership | Routine office files like supply catalogs, mass mailings or promotional materials |
| Materials showing institutional change or disputes | Personal materials like financial records or correspondence unrelated to work |
| More Valuable | Less Valuable |
|---|---|
| Original scholarly, literary, or artistic work of national or international significance | Published books and articles already available through the library |
| Teaching materials that represent innovative approaches, curriculum development, or course materials that document pedagogical evolution over time | Routine course materials such as standard syllabi, routine assignments and exams, and student work |
| Correspondence between peers about news or issues within the discipline | Correspondence about routine manuscript preparation |
| Documentation of particular research methods and approach | Subject files of copied sources |
| Field notebooks and research journals, or a sampling of photographs related to field research | |
| Original data, measurements, and observations |
The following requirements shall be met before any transfer of University of Idaho records to the Library Special Collections and Archives department:
Preparing Records for Transfer
Labeling and Numbering Boxes
Box Inventories
Records Transfer Form
Terms and Conditions
Forms:
Monetary support is not required when gifting archival materials. Financial contributions do enable timely processing and helps underwrite the costs of long-term high security storage. Such funds are used to organize, maintain, and care for our collections so that they may be preserved and made available for future generations.
Gift funds may be used to honor an individual, a family, a company, or an organization, and the Library will work with donors to employ appropriate means to publicly acknowledge donations. If interested in making a monetary gift to Special Collections and Archives, please contact Dulce Kersting-Lark, department Head, at dulce@uidaho.edu or call (208) 885-1309. To discuss setting up endowments or bequests, please contact Ben Hunter, Dean of University of Idaho Libraries, at bhunter@uidaho.edu or call (208) 885-5858. More information is also available on the Giving page.