About the University Archives & Records Program

What are the University Archives?

The University Archives, housed at the Bentley Historical Library on the North Campus of the University of Michigan, are records of the university and related materials selected, preserved, and made accessible for their enduring historical and administrative value. Records are selected by the University Archives staff through a process of archival appraisal, in consultation with offices and individuals across campus. These records may be paper-based, on audio-visual media, or digital in origin; they are appraised for their content. Once transferred to the Bentley Historical Library, the records are preserved within climate-controlled conditions. They are cataloged in the University of Michigan online catalog known as MIRLYN and further described in "finding aids," which are increasingly online and accessible through this website as well as MIRLYN.

A professional staff of archivists provides a range of consultative services for the University Archives, helping to address questions concerning proper management of active records, the appraisal and transfer of inactive records, and access to specific records for administrative and historical research. Other than duplication fees, these services are provided at no cost to the university community and the general public.

What are Historical Records?

The University Archives and Records Program considers "historical records" to be those materials which are inactive and substantive in content whether in paper or electronic format. Inactive records have no current administrative use for the unit which generated them. Records remain active for varying numbers of years, depending on the purpose for which they were created. The University Archives and Records Program consults with individual units to establish a periodic transfer of inactive records to the archives. Some units may find it advantageous to deposit records at the time of an administrative change or physical relocation, or when pressing space problems would be alleviated by the removal of inactive records.

Substantive records contain information which documents important activities of the unit, its decision-making processes, and its policies. Examples of this documentation are:

What We Do

Records transferred to the archives for archival retention are processed, that is, they are appraised, arranged, and described. A staff of professional archivists appraises the records for their long-term historical value and materials judged to have insufficient historical value to warrant the cost of permanent retention are removed. Archivists arrange the materials and create a finding aid for the records which consists of a concise history of the unit as reflected in the records, a scope and content note for the records describing the extent and arrangement of the records, and a folder-level description of the records.

An example of a finding aid for an university unit is viewable online here. The University Archives staff has worked for the last several years in collaboration with the Digital Production Library Services to provide access online to a number of university finding aids. The finding aids are coded in Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML) and comply with the Standard for Encoded Archival Description (EAD).

Once the finding aid is reviewed and completed, the processed record group is available for research use and is maintained in the Bentley Historical Library's secured stacks to ensure its continued preservation. Questions of sensitivity and privacy protection which may arise during processing are discussed with the generating unit.