“Learn by Doing” focuses on the steps Cal Poly Pomona Special Collections and Archives staff have taken to modernize and align unit practices with other special collections and archival repositories in the field and their effort to increase the documentation of student life in their university archives. The article outlines steps taken, lessons learned, partnerships established along the way, and suggestions for those wishing to engage in a similar endeavor. Introduction When it comes to documenting the history of a university, special collections librarians and archivists have noted that the bulk of their repositories focus on scholarly and administrative activities conducted by various departments and faculty. While important, these materials do not tell the full story of the university’s history. A fuller picture would include documentation of activities in which students are engaged. Student groups and alliances reflect the changes that are taking place within the larger society and provide insight into evolving mores, values, and belief systems. Acknowledging the need to preserve this information, special collections librarians and archivists are encouraging fellow professionals to make a stronger effort to collect historical documents that pertain to student life on campus. With that in mind, the staff at Cal Poly Pomona Special Collections and Archives identified the need to increase documentation of student life in its University Archives. “Learn by doing” is the motto at Cal Poly Pomona, and it is the purpose of this article to discuss the steps taken to modernize unit policies and procedures and the methods attempted to gather student life materials. 1 Richardson et al.: Learn by Doing: Cal Poly Pomona’s Efforts to Modernize Archival P Published by Digital Commons @ DU, 2018 A Brief Historical Perspective For many university archives, there is a structured system in place for obtaining administrative or operational records through records retention programs. The problem with this system is that these records only tell one side of the story. Special collections librarians and archivists have found that acquiring student life materials is necessary to provide a more complete picture of a university campus. However, defining what that entails can be tricky since student life materials encompass a vast array of topics. In his 1994 article “From Classroom to Commons,” John Straw provides a comprehensive definition of the types of student life materials that should be collected. They include “social, recreational, cultural, political, religious, and all other aspects of the student experience beyond the classroom.” In their 2012 article, Jessica Wagner and Debbi Smith specify that student life materials should contain “records of extracurricular activities, clubs, performances, sports teams and Greek life; materials reflecting residential life and commuting, samples of student work, photographs and ephemera, student publications and records of students’ social lives.” These definitions describe a scope so large that a department can easily become overwhelmed. Nevertheless, special collections librarians and archivists agree that this collecting area cannot be ignored. In 2013, Wagner stated that in failing to acquire materials from students “university archives are excluding a key group from the documentary record.” Archivist Michele Christian stated that “without a concerted effort on the part of the college or university archives to include and inform students, many aspects of campus life will remain undocumented.”
Though research provides general guidelines of what student life materials consist of and their importance to the mission of the university archives, obstacles may arise when trying to acquire these materials. In fact, it has been compared to “hitting a moving target.” What makes these materials so elusive? One explanation is that such an endeavor can place strains on departments that are already understaffed and overwhelmed with projects. Developing student life collections requires time for outreach, processing, and so forth, which takes additional time and resources. Another well documented reason is the high turnover rates in student clubs and organizations. The majority of students only stay for four years and many clubs elect a new board every year, so it is difficult to establish ties with students when leadership changes so quickly. In addition, it can be a struggle for exposure on campus; students are often not familiar with special collections and archives, their purpose, or the materials they contain. Lastly, a great deal of student life materials from the past twenty years are digital. This raises issues for university archives that have not developed a plan or do not have the technological capabilities to ingest electronic records. While numerous pitfalls exist in collecting student life materials, surveys and case studies provide special collections librarians and archivists with insight into how other universities are tackling the issue. Since there are different variables from one university archive to the next, there are many approaches for acquiring student life materials. According to a survey conducted by Wagner in 2013, just about half of the participating universities indicated that “liaising with student groups was key in acquiring student life materials.” However, the survey stops short of asking about the effectiveness of this method. Case studies offer insight into how institutions have approached this issue. In 2012, the Bruin Archives Project (BAP) was created by library and information science graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles to undertake outreach and 3 Richardson et al.: Learn by Doing: Cal Poly Pomona’s Efforts to Modernize Archival P Published by Digital Commons @ DU, 2018 processing of student archival collections for the university archive. The project benefits both groups in the sense that graduate students gain significant archival experience and the university archive builds upon its student life collection. While BAP is a great initiative for creating a collaborative strategy for collecting and processing student life materials, the project was only able to reach out to a fraction of the groups they contacted. The study notes that although roughly 800 student organizations were contacted, only about 75 responded to the survey. One option for raising student awareness would be to revisit methods of outreach and promotion of the program. At Iowa State University, Special Collections and University Archives staff identified gaps in their oral history collection and decided to actively pursue current students to get their unique perspectives on campus life and activities. While this approach was effective in that the archive acquired new records, it was limited in that it generated only one type of record (oral histories) that were mainly focused on student accounts of a particular on-campus event. A 2012 study by Wagner and Smith offers the most comprehensive directives for collecting student materials, including attendance at student orientation sessions, coordination with student organizations, and a streamlined process for students to donate their materials. Students are more likely to donate materials when the process is easier. Megan Atkinson, the University Archivist at Tennessee Technological University, also encourages archivists to attend events held by groups likely to hold student life records. At her institution, she would watch for upcoming class reunions and ask the organizers if she could set up a table with duplicate yearbooks attendees could annotate. This approach led to conversations with alumni about the University Archives’ overall mission and provided connections for future collection development. This method is similar to the Bruin Archives Project in that it utilizes 4 Collaborative Librarianship, Vol. 10 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 7 https://digitalcommons.du.edu/collaborativelibrarianship/vol10/iss1/7 collaboration with students, student organizations and/or departments as a method of developing university archives. In this case, there is the potential for collaborating with alumni and partnering with alumni groups in order to fill gaps in the collection. This same approach can be utilized with current student groups so that the university archive can acquire recent student life materials. Although there is acknowledgement in the archival community that acquiring student life materials is essential to university archives, there is room for exploration of the methods, such as collaborations, used to obtain these materials and the potential setbacks that may arise. Laying the Groundwork: Reigniting a Stagnant Archival Program In August 2015, library administration began revamping the Special Collections unit at Cal Poly Pomona University Library. At the time, two previously separate units (Special Collections and University Archives and the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library) were combined and placed under the purview of Katie Richardson, who was hired to oversee the growth and development of Special Collections, standardize the policies and procedures that govern these rare and unique collections, and increase productivity and efficiency in the unit. Prior to Richardson’s arrival, these units had been supervised by individuals who lacked formal training in managing special collections.
