Donating Materials
Faculty Papers
In consultation with RBML Curators, the University Archives encourages senior faculty members and administrators notable either by their outstanding contributions to their fields or by particularly distinguished service to the University to deposit their personal papers in the appropriate repository. Faculty papers, regardless of format, document the individual’s career at the University and their research discoveries or projects. Of particular interest are materials related to teaching, research and service work conducted by the faculty member during their time at Columbia. These include:
- Autobiographical materials: CVs, bibliographies, oral histories, interviews; photographs, negatives and slides, photo albums (all preferably labeled); personal memoirs, diaries or journals
- Course materials: syllabi, course outlines, lecture notes, handouts, exams and assignments, reading lists, and other classroom materials; course proposals
- Research-related files: grant applications, proposals and final reports; unpublished papers; publishers’ contracts, comments and galley proofs; patent applications; drafts of nonfiction, only if they have significant and substantial annotations, are seminal works or the author received an award for the publication
- Scholarship: Talks, lectures, conference presentations
- Administrative materials: documents related to the faculty member’s service at the University such as information on new programs and initiatives, memos and notices about departmental policy, agendas, meeting minutes, reports, resolutions from faculty committees and departmental meetings
Limited interest:
- Books, articles and book reviews published by the faculty member or in honor of the faculty member: we collect only those that are currently not part of the Columbia Libraries collection. However, we would consider duplicate copies if they include annotations.
- Research notes, lab and field notebooks, analyses and reports of findings, manuscripts, research data.
- Newspaper clippings, press releases, transparencies, models, scrapbooks, calendars and memorabilia
Outside of our collecting policy:
- Personal libraries, reprints and offprints, books and magazines, unannotated photocopies of book chapters and articles
- Professional correspondence related to specific individuals: letters of recommendations, tenure review assessments for both internal and external candidates, performance evaluations
- Grades and evaluations of students; grade reports, graded assignments, exams or papers; course evaluations
- Search, recruitment, promotion and other personnel-related records
- Professional organization memberships, renewals, conference agendas and proceedings, and other attendance and travel related materials such as logistics and meeting arrangement records
- Medical and legal records
- Financial records: invoices, receipts, tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, cancelled checks, royalty statements
- Policy and procedure manuals; handbooks; equipment maintenance records
- Three-dimensional items: such as busts, plaques, trophies.
- Honors, prizes, awards, diplomas, certificates, honorary degrees
- Duplicates, blank forms, stationery, letterhead
- Typewriters, word processors, and computer equipment: We are interested in the faculty member’s electronic files, but not necessarily the technology used to create and/or preserve the works.