Happy American Archives Month y’all! This is a collaborative effort by professional organizations and repositories around the nation to highlight the importance of records of enduring value. Archivists are professionals who assess, collect, organize, preserve, maintain control of, and provide access to information that has lasting value, and they help people find and understand the information they need in those records.
But wait, what is an archive?
An archive is place to go find information. But rather than gathering information from a book, at an archive, you do research in firsthand material. Think about things like letters, reports, memos, photographs and other primary source material. Archives come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. As you may have guessed, at the Poage, our archival materials are centered on government and typically, our materials have ties to central Texas. Our archive serves to strengthen memory by creating a reliable information bank that provides access to irreplaceable assets.
Poage Archives by the Numbers:
- 12 Congressional collections
- 8 Texas Legislators papers
- 4 Judicial collections
- Over 160 possible research topics found in our collections
Also, we have many “bridge” collections: historic newspapers, campaign memorabilia, political cartoons, and map collection. These items help “bridge” the gap in the historical record.
So, you don’t have books?
Actually we do! Our archival collections are supported by our 20,000 volume book collection. Our titles focus on politics, history, and public policy. It’s just one more reason (or 20,000 more) that Poage is so special. You can search for titles in the library catalog here, be sure to select Poage Library from the drop down menu.
Sic’em Archives!