Guidelines & University Policies

Regents' Policy on Libraries and Archives
The University Archives is the official records repository of the University of Minnesota with Regentially mandated responsibility for the "historically valuable documentation of University units and individuals, including faculty, staff, and administrators" (Regents policy, rev. March 2006). The guidelines below were drafted to assist staff and faculty in determining which kinds of records are of potential historical or long-term administrative value. These records should be regularly and routinely transferred to the Archives. The guidelines are organized to reflect the types of records usually associated with particular offices and individuals. The guidelines are not comprehensive, though. Please consult the Archives before destroying or removing records

University Policies on Records and Information Management
The University Records and Information Management program provides guidelines on types of records that may be recycled or destroyed when no longer needed or after a specified amount of time ("retention period") has passed. Many of these are listed in the U-Wide Retention Schedule.

Policies on Privacy and Access to Information
Some types of University records are protected by state and federal privacy legislation or University policy. These include some of the information found in personnel files as well as transcripts, and grade reports. More information on privacy and access is available from the University Records and Information Management program.

What do I send to the Archives? Link to guidelines for:

University offices:
The University Archives collects the official records of the University of Minnesota. These may include:

Accreditation records or self surveys, both internal and external. May include reports, correspondence, questionnaires, or guidelines.   

Administrative files. General records concerning the administration of the university and its colleges, departments, and programs. Files may include reports, memoranda, correspondence.

Alumni materials. These include directories, reports, and publications.  

Annual reports of colleges, departments, programs, centers.

Annual reports of the university and its units.

Audits. Final reports and appendices only. 

Biographical materials of long-term faculty and senior administrative staff. May include obituaries, memorial service programs, interviews, curriculum vitae.  (Please note that promotions and tenure files do not come to the Archives).

Budgets. Summary reports and appendices only.

Committee and council records.  Internal or external, University-wide or on the college, departmental, or program level such as task forces, curriculum committees, consultative committees.  May include minutes, agendas, reports.  

Correspondence.

Curriculum development records. Documenting the development and planning for courses offered at the University. May include correspondence, memoranda, proposals, and faculty recommendations.

External organizations and associations. Records of multi-institutional collaborations or associations in which the university is a participant. 

Film and video. All formats, documenting University activities, functions, facilities, and its faculty, staff and students. Must be identified in some way (such as dates, names, or captions). 

Grants. Materials documenting awarded grants.  May include proposals, interim and final reports and summary data. All other records may be discarded after administrative and legal retentions are met.

Photographs. All formats, documenting University activities, functions, facilities, and its faculty, staff and students. Must be identified in some way (such as dates, names, or captions). 

Planning records. Records of the university and its colleges and departments documenting its mission and goals. May include reports, correspondence, and policy and program proposals.

Policies and procedures files.  Material specific to the University, documenting past and present policies and procedures.

Publications.  One copy each, includes newsletters, magazines, reports.

Research projects. May include proposals, interim and final reports and summary data. All other records may be discarded after administrative and legal retentions are met.

Self-surveys. Internal and external reviews.  May include reports, correspondence, questionnaires, guidelines.  

Speech files of senior administrators. Speeches, addresses, or comments made while representing the university. Identified.

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Personal / professional papers of faculty, administrators and alumni:
Personal papers provide essential documentation of University history. The University Archives collects the personal and professional papers of senior administrators, long-term faculty, selected alumni, and others whose primary institutional affiliation has been with the University of Minnesota. Administrators, faculty, and alumni such as president and historian Guy Stanton Ford; physicist A.O.C. Nier, heart surgeon C. Walton Lillehei and University alumnus and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug have entrusted their papers to University Archives.

These collections complement departmental holdings and reflect the teaching, research, and service missions of the University of Minnesota. Personal / professional papers may include:

Bibliographies or publication lists.

Biographical material about the faculty member including curriculum vitae, obituaries, photographs, interviews, bibliographies.

Correspondence with colleagues and students.

Consulting files.

Department and committee records created in an individual’s capacity as a University administrator, department chair, committee chair or member.

Diaries and journals, personal and professional.

Family papers, particularly if family members have shared in research efforts.

Grant and research files, lab notebooks, project records

Photographs taken by or of the faculty member, documenting research colleagues and staff, laboratories, equipment, family and friends (identified photographs only)

Professional contributions. Materials documenting involvement in professional or research organizations.

Publications (if not otherwise available through libraries).

Talks and lectures.

Teaching materials including lecture notes, course syllabi

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Records of campus organizations, faculty associations, staff and student groups:
The Archives collections include records of groups associated with the University including student, alumni, staff, and faculty organizations. Publications such as newspapers, newsletters, journals, books by or about the organization.

Administrative records

Annual and other reports

Brochures

Budgets and financial summary documents

Charters and by-laws

Correspondence

Directories or lists of officers and members

Mission statements

Meeting minutes

Photographs, film and video. All formats, documenting University activities, functions, facilities, and its faculty, staff and students. Must be identified in some way (such as dates, names, or captions). 

Publications. May include newsletters, newspapers, brochures, books by or about the organization.

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Student papers and ephemera
The University Archives collects materials that document the student experience at the University of Minnesota. These can include documents that are contemporary with an individual's status as a student or recollections and reflections on the student years. There are many topics of interest; some examples include academic, athletic, artistic, social, and political activities.  (Please note that the archives does not collect student transcripts, grades, or other private information considered private.  More information on privacy policy and laws: http://recmgmt.finop.umn.edu/privacy.html)

Correspondence.

Diaries, memoirs, commentaries and fictional or humorous accounts of student life.

Drawings, and paintings of campus scenes and life, including interior views of dormitories and student rooms, and images student dress or traditions.

Film, video, and audio (analog and digital) documenting student life.

Lecture notes and course assignments

Photographs (if identified)

Posters, flyers, announcements, tickets, programs

Web sites

Writings and publications including essays and research papers.

Scrapbooks

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