SPECIAL COLLECTIONS ACQUISITIONS POLICY

Manuscript and Archival Materials

Mission:  The mission of the C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department is to acquire, preserve, and make accessible the special book and non-book resources in the UTEP Library, especially those relating to the history of the University of Texas at El Paso and the El Paso region. 

The manuscript and archival collections directly support several academic programs, and the UTEP Library always will keep potential use for academic research in mind when evaluating potential gifts and purchases.  Materials in the collections now support research in the departments of Art, History, Political Science, English, Environmental Sciences, Education, Business, Engineering, Health Sciences, Anthropology and Sociology, and Social Work.  Without the existence of a university archives, the Special Collection Department attempts to fill the gap by collecting and making available The Prospector, yearbooks, course catalogs, theses, dissertations, and history seminar papers, as well as certain official financial records and publications from the university.

Priorities for acquisitions include visual and textual materials documenting the University of Texas at El Paso and its predecessor institutions; people, organizations, and history of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez; the natural and built environment of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez; and the history and environment of the U.S.-Mexico border region. Formats of the materials collected include (but are not limited to) printed or published materials such as newspapers, broadsides and posters, maps, El Paso City directories and phone books, and microforms. Additionally, the department collects manuscript and archival records, photographs and negatives, film and video, and oral history interviews.  Subject areas of particular interest are immigration, basic industries such as railroads and mining, photography, and under-represented minority communities along the border. Records of local businesses or organizations, papers of faculty members, papers of local residents and political figures are sought.  The department also seeks literary manuscripts from local and regional authors and materials documenting the publishing process.

Other priorities for collecting include materials documenting far West Texas, southern New Mexico, and Northern Chihuahua.  As a Regional Historical Resources Depository, the department also accepts and preserves records of historical importance from county and local government agencies from several West Texas counties.  

Because of the limited funds available for purchase of manuscript materials, the department relies heavily on donations to build the manuscript collections.  However, since staff, space, and funds for preservation supplies are also limited, the Library must sometimes decline donations, especially those that are outside the subject or geographic scope of our collections.  Materials may be refused if they are offered with restrictive conditions or if they are moldy or pest-infested.  Acceptance of large collections may be limited by space considerations.  Materials that pose particular challenges for access—for instance, information in formats that are not permanent and which require special equipment to use—may also be refused.   

Procedures for accepting gifts of manuscript materials

1. The Head of Special Collections or the Manuscripts Librarian-Archivist will decide whether the collection fits the acquisition policy. 
2. If the gift matches the acquisition policy, either professional in Special Collections may accept the donation with the following provisions:
   1. The size or extent of the material is not very large.
   2. There are no onerous restrictions.
   3. There are no serious preservation problems or access problems relating to format.
3. Professional staff in Special Collections should consult the Associate Library Director for Collections and Bibliographic Services or the Library Director before accepting gifts with the following conditions or attributes:
   1. The offered donation is very large, necessitating extensive storage space or purchase of large quantities of preservation supplies.  The cut-off size should be approximately 20 linear feet. 
   2. The potential donation is in poor condition, needing extensive conservation or cleaning.  For instance, if it has mold, insects, evidence of rodent activity, or if it is so fragile that it cannot be handled by researchers, special permission would be needed before the collection is accepted.    
   3. The potential donor wishes to place restrictions on the gift that will constitute a burden on staff and make access difficult.  For instance, the library will not usually accept collections that are closed to the public or require the donor’s permission for each instance of access, or that must be permanently displayed, or that must be completely digitized and placed permanently on the library’s web page. 
   4. The potential donor is an “important person,” such as a wealthy donor to the University, friend of the University President, or an elected official. 
4. After the collection has been accepted, the Head of Special Collections or the Manuscripts Librarian/Archivist will send a letter of acknowledgment with a copy of the Deed of Gift to the donor.   This should happen within two weeks of the original donation; if the donor will not provide a signed deed of gift after two requests, the donation may be returned to the donor. 
5. Special Collections staff will send notice of all gifts of manuscript materials—in the form of a copy of the letter of acknowledgment—to the Gifts Coordinator and the Library Director (through his or her Administrative Assistant).  The letter of acknowledgment should state the general content of the donated collection and the extent of the materials. 
6. The Library Director’s Administrative Assistant reports the manuscript donations as in-kind gifts to the Gifts Processing office of Institutional Advancement. 
7. The Head of Special Collections will report the extent of additions to the manuscript and archival holdings to the Library’s Head of Administrative Services in the monthly statistics report.