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SCUA Acquisitions Guidelines

What We Collect

Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), an archival and rare books research department at the University of Oregon Libraries, acquires specific material relating to its core collecting areas:

  • Oregon authors
  • Intentional communities
  • Women’s movement
  • Northwest history and culture
  • Authors and illustrators of children’s books
  • Environmental history
  • Northwest photography.

SCUA is the official repository for the University of Oregon archives. SCUA is a public research repository, and seeks donations of collections with the primary purpose of making those collections available to students, scholars, and the general public on an equal basis. SCUA does not accept unsolicited drop off of materials. We ask that interested donors contact a curator to discuss their potential gift. Ninety percent of the materials we acquire are gifts to the Library, and we greatly appreciate the donors’ generosity and thoughtfulness.

Outlined below are guidelines regarding the responsibilities of SCUA to its donors, the conditions under which a donation may be accepted, and the types of material collected by SCUA for the use of its patrons.

Upon accepting material, Special Collections and University Archives is responsible for:

  1. Maintaining the materials, ensuring accepted practice for preservation and security, preparing the materials for research use through professional arrangement and description, and making the materials available in our reading room to interested researchers on an equal basis during regular business hours.
  2. Ensuring that any material identified as sensitive by the donor is restricted from use in accordance with an agreement in writing accepted by both the donor and SCUA. SCUA cannot accept collections that are restricted indefinitely or for which the restriction cannot be enforced or applied equally to all researchers.
  3. Returning to the donor, offering to another institution, or discarding materials that SCUA wishes to remove from the collection, in accordance with the written deed of gift accepted by both the donor and SCUA and the policies of SCUA.
  4. Securing legal documentation for every gift that makes clear the terms of the transfer and any instructions of the donor. SCUA only accepts collections for which legal title to the physical items is transferred to the University of Oregon by deed of gift.
  5. Asking donors to transfer not only the physical papers but also any copyright(s) in them that the donor might own. (Ownership of copyright is separable from ownership of the physical item (such as the letter or photo). This request is made to make it easier for researchers to use quotations or images from the papers in their work. However, SCUA will consider donation of the physical material without assignment of copyright.

Upon accepting material, Special Collections and University Archives cannot:

Types of Material Collected

Personal Papers from Individuals.  It is important that SCUA staff be permitted to survey papers or records in order to determine which materials have enduring historical value, listed below are types of materials that are often valuable to a researcher. This list, which is suggestive and not definitive, illustrates the wide range of documentation sometimes useful for historical and administrative research. If you have any questions about this list, please ask a member of our staff.

SCUA considers for acquisition:

SCUA generally does not acquire:

Organizations and Institutions.  Many of the records produced by an organization have long-term value. SCUA is interested in the records that best illustrate the purpose, activities, and policies of an organization. Such documents usually represent an "end product"—a final report, for example, instead of a draft. We are more interested in related groups of materials rather than individual items. Records should be inactive—that is, no longer regularly used for routine business. Before records are transferred to SCUA, an archivist should survey the organization's papers or speak with knowledgeable staff to determine which materials have enduring historical value. Listed below are some of the types of documentation that the SCUA often preserves for historical and administrative research:

SCUA considers for acquisition:

SCUA generally does not acquire:

Preliminary Survey/Archival Appraisal:
SCUA requires that trained staff members survey and evaluate all collections before they are acquired. This evaluation weighs a number of factors, including the documents’ provenance and content, their authenticity and reliability, their order and completeness, their condition and anticipated costs of preservation, and their intrinsic value.

Rare Books:
SCUA only selectively acquires rare books. We generally do not accept unsolicited gift books.  

Approved: February 17, 2010

Maintained by: N. Helmer, spcarref@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 10/27/2010