GETTING STARTED

Doing research in archival sources is different from working with secondary sources such as books and journals. Because archival materials are described differently than printed matter, it is usually more difficult to identify relevant sources. A number of different tools, which are described later in the tutorial, have been created to assist researchers in finding these materials.

Manuscripts and Archives functions as the archives for Yale University and collects personal papers of individuals and families and records of organizations outside of Yale for research purposes.

The Yale Archives includes the records of schools, departments, units, and other administrative offices of the university, ranging from its founding in 1701 to the present. While the department may hold recent records of individual units, university records are closed to research for a minimum of thirty-five years from their date of creation.

The records are organized in broad structural or functional record groups, which are further sub-divided into record units. The order and numbering of the record groups is based on a hierarchical system. Records units are assigned an arbitrary number that functions as a call number for that material. Generally, description of archival records is at the level of the record unit.

Our manuscript collections, each of which is referred to as a manuscript group, are very extensive in number and broad in scope. Many of the creators of these papers have had some association with Yale as alumni or faculty. Manuscripts and Archives currently has over 1,700 manuscript groups.

Archivists sometimes use the term "archival" as in archival collections and archival sources to describe the aggregation of institutional records and personal papers.