Guides to Collections and Research Aids

Guides to collections or "finding aids" describe collections and primary source materials such as:

• an organization's archival records,

• a collection of personal papers,

• or a collector's systematic accumulation of documents on a specific topic.

The title of the collection consists of the creator's name and the type of materials making up the collection. The finding aid gives detailed information about the person or organization that created the records, the subjects documented within the collection, its organization and arrangement, and a listing of files and items in the collection. Finding aids specify index terms for subjects and kinds of materials found in the collection. Just as importantly, they include a biography or history of who (or what) created the collection and why -- important information for evaluating the reliability or potential bias of the collection.

Electronic finding aids for some collections are placed on the Special Collections Library Web page as they are completed. The finding aid listing is alphabetical by the name of the collection, with the Special Collections unit indicated in brackets. There is also a separate listing where the finding aids are arranged topically. Special Collections has developed an in-house database to provide finding aid-level information for all archival collections. Staff will search this database for researchers until the database is made available for public online searching in the near future.

Other research aids in Special Collections include printed finding aids, a card catalog for literary manuscript materials in the Rare Books and Manuscripts section, preliminary listings of the files contained in some collections, as well as special lists and indexes available either in paper form or on Special Collections' Web pages.

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