Student Organizations

The University Archives is committed to helping all student organizations to keep their archives for the future. This includes paper materials and digital materials; please contact the Archivist if you would like to set up a consultation for building a system for keeping your organization's archives.

TEN TIPS FOR PRESERVING YOUR ORGANIZATION'S HISTORY

1. Document the activities of your group: Keep minutes of meetings and membership rosters; save copies of publications, fliers, and other promotional material; take photographs of members, meetings, and events. Don't rely on third-party applications like Facebook group pages to store your photographs and membership information.
2. Label your materials with full names, dates, and descriptions of events or circumstances.
3. Keep your records together in one central place. Assign a member to be secretary every year and have them pass information to a successor annually.
4. Develop a straightforward filing system that works for your organization. There's no one best way to do this.
5. Store your records away from dampness, dust, excessive heat, and sun.
6. Avoid using paper clips and rubber bands. If you have documents that need to be kept together, use stainless steel staples or plastic clips.
7. Develop a routine of transferring inactive records to University Archives at the end of the semester, year, or your leader's term of office.
8. Consider the fate of your non-paper documents. Digital records can pose software and hardware access problems. Save CDs/DVDs, memorabilia, photographs, posters, sound recordings, and videos, as well as traditional paper documents. Contact University Archives if you have materials on websites or social media pages that we can export and preserve.
9. Get to know the staff of the University Archives and learn more about our activities and collections.
10. When in doubt, don't throw it out! Contact University Archives to learn more about preserving and organizing your records.