Thursday, January 4, 2007

General Information about the Archives

The archives are open to people upon request. In order to do any research in the Elmhurst College Archives, one must make an appointment. There are specific rules that need to be followed in the library such as no cell phones or cameras allowed, researchers must write in pencil and be careful not to write on or on top of any documents. They must also wear cotton gloves when they touch old photos or other fragile materials. Researchers have to be accompanied by a member of the library staff and the staff member must bring any document to the researcher. While going through the documents, the researcher can only take out one file folder at a time and they have to put everything back before they are able to look at anything else. All of the materials from the archives must remain in the archives. There is nothing that may be checked out. The materials that are in the archives were either obtained by the college or donated by other people. Some people have donated their diaries and pictures to the college. Others have donated their entire collection of records. Many people do not know that the Elmhurst College Archives exists, and if they do, they do not know all of the interesting information that can be found in it. Only about 45 people come to look up information in the archives each year!

7 comments:

Katie said...

I liked going to the Rudolf G. Shade archives because we learned what extra resources we have at Elmhurst that could help us with things we may need to do in the future.

mercedez091 said...

I had no idea that this place even existed. I am happy that we visited the Rudolf G. Shade Archives so that I now know that this is a resource available to me if I ever need it.

Michele said...

I didn't know it existed and I probably would have to look around the basements a little because I don't entirely remember where it was. It would have been nice to know about the archives last year when I had to write a paper on the school I was going to be attended. I feel like they should make their presence more known or have more exhibits up to give the students and faculty a little more background on the history of the school. I'm sure there are a lot of interesting facts that we could learn.

Unknown said...

I never knew, before this class, that a fairly extensive archival collection of our school's history even existed. It's pretty amazing the kind of things that are documented, everything from tax papers to important manuscripts!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

The Rudolf G. Schade Archives were very interesting to see. The collection is vast and appears to have anything and everything an Elmhurst student would need to research the history of the College. I also thought it was important that the archives have an online catalog system to keep track of all the documents and artifacts.

Libby said...

I didn't even know we had archives. It's great to know that our library has a relatively thorough collection of archives. who knows, maybe I'll be using them someday. Also, I thought it was really nice that we were able to attend the naming ceremony. Although we didn't know him at all, you could tell that his time at this school was greatly treasured and it's nice that he gets remembered in that way.