Mary Atwell, Archivist and CDS Librarian
(ext. 3933)
atwell@hood.edu
The Hood College Archive is available for research by students, faculty, and staff. When you assign archival research projects to your students, they will have better experiences if they understand the following “4 Ps”:
Have your students use the online Archive Research Request Form to set up an appointment prior to visiting the archive. Many of our records are not processed or indexed, and the time required to pull potentially relevant materials means that it is not always feasible to accommodate spontaneous requests. Students should also read and sign a copy of the Research Room Policies and Procedures to bring on their initial visit.
While students do not need to have a theme or topic fully fleshed out before coming to the archive, some preparation makes for a more successful trip. It is very helpful if a student is prepared with themes or keywords, names (if any), and approximate dates (at least narrowed to a decade if possible) before coming to the archive. The Archive Research Request Form is intended to help the student identify some of this information and provide it to the archivist in advance.
Archival research can be fun and rewarding, but it can also be frustrating and sometimes fruitless. It is important that students are aware that several visits might be necessary, and many documents pored over, to find useful information.
Students should understand that the archivist is here to help students navigate through materials rather than doing the actual research, and that the use of archival materials is restricted to the Collections Development Services office. The student can arrange to have pulled materials available and waiting over several visits if needed.
Students should not necessarily be discouraged if the information they are seeking is not found. The fact that information is absent from certain primary source materials can be revealing in its own right. It is also important to remember that, while there is a wealth of documents in the archive, Hood’s archival records are incomplete.
It helps the archivist greatly to know what types of primary source materials are acceptable for a given assignment. Do you accept newspaper and magazine articles contemporaneous with an event? Do you want students to concentrate on written primary sources or will you accept photographs? Can they use ephemera?