The University Archives documents the history of Princeton University. Our collection is built in large part by collecting the inactive, permanent records of University offices, departments and units.

Inactive records are those that are no longer used in the day-to-day course of business. Permanent records are those that may be used for legal, historical or operational purposes in the future. Inactive, permanent records are collected regardless of format. Examples are listed below.

• Administrative Reports, including annual reports, which summarize activities of an organizational body during a stated time period.
• Subject Files of department heads or central subject files for offices or administrative units, excluding those materials listed below under types of materials not collected.
• Committee Records such as meeting minutes, which document the activities of advisory boards, faculty committees and other University organizations and initiatives.
• Correspondence (including email) especially of executives and high-level administrators.
• Photographs, Films and Videotapes which provide a visual record of the University and its activities.
• Publications including student and alumni publications, newsletters, bulletins, promotional materials for University events and programs.
• Websites: Recommend a website for preservation by the University Archives

If you have questions about whether the records that you wish to transfer are permanent, inactive records, please contact us through the form on the Ask Special Collections page. 

Examples of materials that the University Archives does not collect are:

• Invoices or financial statements documenting minor financial transactions
• Graded student work
• Duplicates or multiple copies of publications and records
• Material relating to individual employees' job performance
• Faculty research notes
• Blank forms kept for supply purposes
• Personal or private papers neither created nor received in connection with the University's business
• Subject files consisting mainly of newspaper clippings
• Published books and articles

For guidance on managing active university records, see Princeton University Records Management. 

1. Contact the University Archives at [email protected] with a brief description of the records that you wish to transfer. 

    

2. Once the transfer is approved, you will submit a Transfer Form. If you are transferring paper records and your transfer contains more than one box, complete and attach an inventory form to the Transfer Form. When completing the transfer form for digital records, be sure to complete the Technical Information section as well.

    

3. Read the instructions to transfer paper records or the instructions to transfer digital records.

    

4. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please complete the form on the Ask Special Collections page.

Student organization records commonly transferred to the University Archives include:

• Governing documents: constitutions, charters, mission and vision statements, and by-laws
• Subject files concerning projects, initiatives, activities, and functions
• Publications and publicity material: newsletters, brochures, event programs, and booklets
• Annual reports
• Committee reports and minutes
• Organizational histories
• Correspondence and memoranda
• Membership lists
• Meeting minutes
• Scrapbooks
• Photographs, audio and video recordings
• Websites
  • Complete this form to recommend a website for preservation by the University Archives

The University Archives accepts the above records in analog or digital format, including email.

Items which generally should not be transferred to the Archives include:

• Blank forms
• Detailed financial records, canceled checks, bank statements, and receipts
• All duplicate material: keep only the original copy and annotated copies
• Plaques and trophies

If you have any questions, please contact the Project Archivist for Student Life at [email protected] or complete the form on the Ask Special Collections page.

1. Contact us through the form on the Ask Special Collections page to let us know that you would like to transfer records and to discuss whether the records you wish to transfer are permanent historical records. The University Archives accepts paper documents, audio-visual materials, photographs, and digital records. See Types of Records Transferred by Student Organizations for more information.
    
2. Submit Transfer Form. If you are transferring paper records and your transfer contains more than one box, complete and attach an inventory form to the Transfer Form. If you are transferring digital records, be sure to complete the Technical Information section as well.
    
3. We accept digital records from student organizations in one of the following ways:
   • For digital records created, maintained, or used exclusively in Google Drive or Dropbox, simply share the archival folder (view-only access) with the Mudd Library email address, [email protected].
   • For digital records created, maintained, or used outside of a shared cloud environment (such as, on a single computer or USB drive), simply ZIP ("Compress" on OS X) the folder you wish to share, upload it to Google Drive, and simply share the archival folder (view-only access) with the Mudd Library email address, [email protected]. You may also transfer these types of digital records in person at Mudd Library.
   • For emails, use Google Takeout to export the label(s) you wish to transfer. Once the ZIP file of your archive is prepared, share it with the Mudd Library email address, [email protected].
      
4. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact us via the form on the Ask Special Collections page.
    

We are pleased to receive records of abiding historical value that relate to Princeton University's past. The Archives would be much poorer if not for the generosity of alumni, faculty, and staff and their respective families. We are especially interested in records that might shed light on student life, including diaries, correspondence home, scrapbooks, examination questions, course syllabi and notes, and photographs. If you should come across such records, we would be delighted to make a home for them.

There are some items that we do not need: Nassau Heralds, Bric-a-Bracs, and reunion books published before 1950, most mass-published books pertaining to Princeton, Nassau Hall bicentennial (1956) and other Princeton-related stamps, and reunion clothing. Except for the last instance, we have multiple copies of these items. If you are at all uncertain about whether or not to donate something, feel free to email us. The editorial office of the Princeton Alumni Weekly may be interested in copies of the Nassau Heralds, Bric-a-Bracs, and Freshmen Heralds. Please contact them directly.

Please contact the Mudd Manuscript Library via the form on the Ask Special Collections page to let us know about the potential donation. Once the donation is accepted, we will ask you to send a completed Princeton University Archives Donor Agreement Form, which you can access either as a webform or as a PDF (if you would prefer to print and mail the form). Analog records can be sent via mail (65 Olden Street, Princeton, NJ, 08544) or donated in person at Mudd Library. We accept digital records from alumni in one of the following ways, whichever is most convenient for the donor:

1. For digital records located on a single computer or device, A) copy the files to an external hard drive or USB drive and B) mail the drive to us (Mudd Manuscript Library, 65 Olden Street, Princeton, NJ, 08544).
2. For digital records located on a single computer or device, A) zip ("Compress" on OS X) the folder you wish to share, B) upload it to Google Drive, and C) share the archival folder (view-only access) with the Mudd Library email address, [email protected]. If you do not have a Google Drive account, email us at and we will create and share a folder with you to upload your ZIP file.
3. For digital records created, maintained, or used exclusively or primarily within Google Drive or Dropbox, A) share the archival folder (view-only access) with the Mudd Library email address, [email protected].

Please let us know if you experience any complications in donating your digital records, and we would happy to assist you. After we receive the donor form and the donation of records, we will send a brief acknowledgment to assure you that the records arrived safely. Then, in due course, you will receive a formal letter of acknowledgment from the University Librarian.

The design of your website largely influences our ability to preserve it successfully. Please keep these guidelines in mind--which were developed based on similar guidelines at the Library of Congress, Columbia University, and the Smithsonian Institution--when developing your website to ensure its reliable capture and rendering. To assess your website’s ability to be archived successfully, visit ArchiveReady. Complete this form to recommend a website for preservation by the University Archives.

• Provide a standard link to all website content (including pages, images, videos, documents); links should be in HTML/XHTML format, rather than embedded in JavaScript or Adobe Flash.
• Avoid proprietary formats (when possible) for important content, especially the home page- if you use a proprietary format make sure it is widely used and well documented (such as docx and PDF). Open standards and open file formats are generally the best choices for preservation.
• Do not create home pages relying heavily on images or animations such as Adobe Flash, but if you do create such pages, also provide alternative text-only HTML versions.
• Follow accessibility standards to render the site usable by everyone and accessible to the Internet Archive’s Heritrix crawler. See the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) for more information and also consult WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
• Include a user and/or xml Sitemap; sitemaps providing links to all content in a website help to ensure that crawlers will capture an entire site.
• Omit robots.txt exclusions or limit them to areas not needed for archiving (such as calendar functions and databases). Please note that web archiving requires crawling of stylesheets and images; please be sure that directories containing these files are not restricted.
• Where feasible, ensure that objects (video, audio, etc.) are embedded within your site or page and not embedded in third-party websites; the Heritrix crawler is unable to crawl some content from certain third-party sites (Vimeo, among others).
• Maintain stable URLs for particular content and redirect from old URLs to new URLs when necessary.
• State the type of character encoding; use an HTML meta tag or XML docytype declaration to indicate the type of encoding that should be used for proper rendering of the webpage.

• Document the activities of your group: keep minutes of meetings, save planning documents for projects and initiatives, take photographs of events
• Label your documents and folders with full names, dates, and description of events or circumstances – one day future members will read what you leave behind
• Develop a straightforward filing system
• Maintain a transition report between elections to help future officers
• Keep your records in a centralized location that key people can access - one of the hardest things about leadership transitions is making sure everyone has access to important documents.
• Make it a point to transfer ownership of organization documents to the next elected person
• Maintain a transition report between elections to help future officers
• If you have physical documents, make sure to store them away from dampness, dust, direct sunlight, and excessive heat
• Develop a routine of transferring inactive records to the University Archives at the end of the semester, year, or term of office

If you want more information about how to manage your records, please view the Amp Up Your Student Organization's Archives presentation.

Know that the Archivist for Student Life and Mudd Library are here to help you! Feel free email the Project Archivist for Student Life at [email protected] or complete the form on the Ask Special Collections page if you have any questions or want a consultation.

Pre-Interviews

All proposed oral history projects intended for donation to Mudd Library should be discussed well in advance by emailing [email protected]. After consulting with a staff member, please complete the Oral History Project Statement, which will outline the parameters of your project.

Interviews

Recording

The interview(s) should be conducted in a quiet room with minimal background noise and possible distractions. We recommend using two pieces of recording equipment during the interviews to ensure that the audio and/or video is captured. The interviewer should record a "lead" at the beginning of each session that consists of the names of the interviewer and interviewee, date of the interview (full month/day/year), interview's location, and proposed subject of the recording or name of the oral history project.

Release Forms

The interviewer should secure a release form, by which the interviewee transfers his or her rights to the interview to Princeton University. The standard release form provided by Mudd Library should be signed at the end of the interview or at the end of the last recording session if the interview takes place over multiple days. There is also a release form that the interviewers will be asked to sign and return. If you have any questions about releases email [email protected].

Preferred File Formats

• For audio files, .wav or .mp3 files are preferred
• For video files, .mp4 files are preferred
• If you are providing transcripts, any widely-used text format is acceptable for rough transcripts, but .pdf files are preferred for final, edited transcripts.

Please make sure that all audio and/or video file names (and text files of transcripts, if applicable) include the name of the interviewee (for example, Smith_Alex.wav, or, if an interview is divided into several parts, Smith_Alex_part_1.mp3, Smith_Alex_part_2.mp3)

Transferring Files

Transfer of files through Google Drive is strongly preferred; however, you may also submit files on physical storage media if necessary. All storage media should be clearly labeled with the name of the oral history project, and if the files are stored on several different storage media, each disk, DVD, etc. should also be labeled with the names of the interviewee(s).

Post-Interviews

We prefer to receive all release forms and audio and/or video files (and transcripts, if applicable) together at the conclusion of the project. You may submit materials periodically if that is more convenient, but please notify us when the project is entirely complete and all materials have been transferred. Please transfer materials to Mudd Library via the method(s) you select on the Oral History Project Statement form.

University Archives:

University Archives staff members have documented workflows for the acquisition, preservation, and description of born-digital archival records. Please note that all links will take you away from this website to files or folders stored in Google Drive.

1. Acquiring Digital Records
2. Archiving Email
3. Digital Records Processing Guide
4. Web Archiving Instructions

Manuscript Collections:

The team in Special Collections processes all born-digital archival materials according to a baseline standard that includes PII scans, virus scans, file identification, and checksum generation. The Born-Digital Processing Information note lists these baseline actions and explains what they are and why we perform them on born-digital materials. This link redirects to an external Google Doc.

Many of the born-digital files found in Special Collections are unusual or were created with software not readily available on most computers. The Tips on Accessing Born-Digital Content document offers some advice on software that will allow users to view most files, as well as some suggestions for a wide array of file types. This link redirects to an external Google Doc.