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Using University Archives

The University Archives consists of archival collections and publications. Most material must be used in the reading room, but some items have been digitized and can be accessed online in Digital UNC. For more information on conducting research with archival materials, please see Using Online Resources
 
Archival collections consist of administrative records, student group materials, and faculty papers. Archival collections contain a broad range of material such as correspondence, meeting minutes, notebooks, and photographs. The University Archives contains over 150 collections. Each collection is described in its own finding aid, which is a guide with information about what the collection contains, how large it is, where the material came from, pertinent access restrictions, and much more. Finding aids can be searched in an online database called ArchivesSpace. The amount of information varies in each finding aid, and more is added regularly. Here is a brief video tutorial on using ArchivesSpace: 


 
Collections are usually organized by the person or unit that created the material; for example, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences records includes a variety of material created, received, or accumulated by the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. In addition, some collections are organized by format or type of record, such as the University of Northern Colorado photographic prints and negatives collection, which contains photographs and negatives from various units. For an overview of the types of collections we have, see University of Northern Colorado Collections. ArchivesSpace also contains a hierarchical list of university archives collections, designated by record group (RG).  
 
Published items such as newspapers, yearbooks, literary magazines, and faculty monographs are described in the libraries catalog. See University of Northern Colorado Publications for a summary of types of publications and how to search for them in the library catalog. Here is a brief YouTube tutorial on searching Summon.  
 
Materials online: The University of Northern Colorado yearbook (Cache la Poudre), student newspaper (The Mirror), and a selection of photographs and videos are available through Digital UNC.