Collections

Our Collections

Special Collections holds more than 3,000 processed archival collections, including manuscripts, architectural drawings, broadsides, photographs, art and realia. The most authoritative information is available at Northwest Digital Archives, which has current finding aids (inventory lists) for several hundred or our collections, with more being added weekly.

Finding Stuff:

• Check out our Subject Guides
• See the quicklist of online finding aids.
• Search the library catalog
• Search Northwest Digital Archives for inventories of many of our collections and those of other repositories throughout the Northwest
• See Finding Primary Source Materials
• Read our blog

More help:

New to archival research or want a refresher? Download the Society of American Archivist's Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research.

• Ask us! Use our form to submit requests for research or use permission.  We require all requests be written via email, fax or letter. Requests made by phone have to be transcribed.
• If you are teaching a class, please see Teaching with Primary Source Materials, and contact us for help with class sessions in Special Collections.

Our primary collecting areas:

• Children's literature
• Fantasy & speculative fiction (particularly by women)
• Missionaries
• Oregon and the Pacific Northwest:
  • Architects
  • Documentary photography
  • History
  • Intentional communities
  • Labor
  • Landscape and environment
  • Minorities
  • Politics
  • Writers
  • University of Oregon