Research Guides: Archives & Special Collections: Home

Using This Guide

Learn about making an appointment and preparing for your visit with Visiting the Archives & Special Collections.

Learn where and how to search our collections with Searching the Archives & Special Collections:

Learn what a finding aid is and how to use one with How to Use a Finding Aid.

About Our Collections includes further details about our archival and special collections and how to access them.

What are the College Archives and Special Collections at COA?

The College Archives contain materials documenting the history, organization, policies, people, and development of the College.

The College Archives are organized by record groups under the general principal of “office of origin.”
- A record group is a collection of records which share the same provenance or were created by the same administrative unit.
- Provenance refers to the origin or source of the materials.
Record groups are used generally to provide structure and order, but due to the stratification of duties across the college materials within a record group may have originated from different offices or units.

Our Special Collections contain materials of enduring historical value that do not fall within the collecting scope of the College Archives but do hold research value to our community members.

Our Special Collections include Manuscripts Collections, the Rare Books Collection, the Zine Special Collection, the Artists' Book Special Collection, the COA Authors Collection, and the COA Collection.

What are Archives?

This open educational resource is made available to educators, cultural heritage professionals, and everyone else through a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Atlas Systems is dedicated to making archives and special collections discoverable and accessible to researchers worldwide. Through support and software designed by archivists for archivists, Atlas ensures that researchers find what they're seeking and get what they need.