Quick Guide to Special Collections and University Archives

Special Collections oversees the care and use of both physical and digital objects. Our digital materials may be surrogates, i.e. items digitized from a physical object, or they may be "born digital", i.e. items that have only ever existed in digital form, such as emails or digital photographs. 

You can explore our digital collections through a number of sites:

• Aviary (sound and moving images)
• Oregon Digital (photographs, rare books and archival materials)
• Historic Oregon Newspapers (publications from 1846 to the present)
• Scholars' Bank (intellectual output of the University of Oregon, including thesis and yearbooks)

Books and broad descriptions of collections:  To locate rare books and archival collections in Special Collections, the library catalog is a good start.  All of our books and archival collections can be searched via the UO Libraries catalog.  This search box will do a keyword search in the UO Libraries Catalog but limit your results to Special Collections: 

If you find an archival collection that you would like to explore, be sure to follow the link to the Finding Aid, for a more thorough description of the collection and specific materials in each container in the collection.

Archival material:  To browse, search, and filter across all of our unique materials (manuscripts, photographs, architectural drawings, audiovisual items, and university archives). Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) uses ArchivesSpace to manage and provide detailed information about our collections. Guidance is available on our help page, or by emailing our reference department. 

All Special Collections and University Archives materials must be requested using the UO Libaries catalog at least 5 business days in advance (but no more than 3 weeks) of an intended research visit. You will receive an email notification after each requested item is successfully retrieved indicating availability for research.

Materials are kept on hold for 1 month, and researchers will receive expiration notices in advance of materials being reshelved. Researchers can renew items in their library account.

For step-by-step information on how to place a request or instructions on on how to create an account (if not a UO-affiliated user) please see our Requesting Materials webpage.