What is the Archive?

Introduction: An Archive embodies the institutional memory of an organization, and is the vehicle that carries a story into the future long after the individual people who shaped the institution have passed on. Archives can be made up of documents, pictures, digital files, media, and realia.

The mission of the Stevenson University Archive is to tell the story of Stevenson and the surrounding area. The Archive of Stevenson University is now taking shape, and many important donations have been pulled together and are just beginning to be organized and documented. Some examples of the artifacts that tell the story of Stevenson are:

• the original ledger maintained by the founding Sisters of Notre Dame, written in longhand, listing the expenses incurred as well as tuition received in 1947, Stevenson’s first year of existence.
• photographic portraits of graduates from the 1950’s and beyond
• the banner used at the inauguration of Dr. Kevin Manning in 2000

Among the most significant and substantial collections in the Archive are the files maintained by Virginia Tanner, longtime Director of Public Relations at the College. We also have old copies of campus publications such as Seven Oaks (yearbooks), Ventures (for Friends and Alumni produced by the PR Dept), the Evening News (Grad School/Lifelong Learning), Among Ourselves (for SU Faculty & Staff), The Villager (Student Groups & Clubs) and FYI .

Staffed by librarians with archival training, the Stevenson Archive is maintained in a secure environment that will ensure its preservation. We anticipate an “archival quality” space in the future, where temperature and humidity controls will prevent items from deteriorating.

If you are a Stevenson staff or faculty member, student, or alumnus, and you have material that “tells the story of Stevenson,” please think about donating your material in order to preserve it for future generations.

If you are a SU student looking for experience working with archival material either as a Work Study student, or for Scholarship Hours, we are interested in you! Some of the tasks that need to be completed are : typing handwrittten inventories, boxing items and scanning photographs.

Access to the Archive

Access is by appointment during regular Library Open hours. The Archive is currently housed in the LRC 11.

What can I Expect to Find?

Unlike traditional library collections, archival collections usually consist of “loose” papers, photographs, and the like. Collections are usually organized by the producing department, and placed in Record Groups, as they are known in the language of archivists. The Stevenson Archive currently has many boxes of materials arranged by record group. In the future, finding aids to the collection will be made available and will begin to appear in the Online Catalog and on the web site. In addition to boxes of materials, we now have a collection of about 60 scrap books from the Tanner Collection, documenting events and press releases by year. These are an excellent way to research events and to locate photographs if you know the year or years when things occurred or people were employed or taking courses at Stevenson.

Links: History of the University

New! View  Timeline of Stevenson University researched and designed by Puller Adkins, Public History intern, 2007.

Green Spring Valley History Collection

In tandem with the growth and formalization of the Stevenson Archive, we are beginning to put together a small collection of materials pertaining to the history of the Green Spring Valley.This collection project was inspired by an exhibit created by library staff member, Carol Maxwell in Spring of 2002. If you or anyone you know would like to donate materials relating to the history of the Valley, please contact Maureen Beck, Director of the Library or Steve Rouzer, Collection Development librarian.