Special Collections & College Archives

Services for Summer and Fall 2022

During Summer 2022, the Reading Room will be open for general appointments, Monday – Thursday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and Friday, 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Consultations with staff will also be available via Zoom or Google Meet. Please contact us directly with any research questions, concerns, or comments at archives@lafayette.edu.

We are excited to welcome Lafayette classes back for Fall 2022, and look forward to helping students achieve hands-on experience with archival records, rare printed materials, manuscripts, photographs, and other media held across Special Collections & College Archives.

To start planning an instruction session with Special Collections & College Archives staff, please submit an instruction request. After we've received your request, we'll connect you with a librarian or archivist who can work to support the instruction session and provide material for the focus of your course's subject matter and learning objectives. Ideally, we will be in contact at least two weeks' prior to the scheduled the class visit to ensure appropriate materials are prepared and adequate meeting space available.

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Digital Collections & Exhibits

To enhance access to their rich and varied collections, Special Collections & Archives have digitized hundreds of historical photographs, pamphlets, manuscripts, books, and other rare and unique materials. The majority of these collections are freely available online for public access.

Web Exhibits & Resources

Special Collections & College Archives content is available through online exhibits and websites.

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Student Fellowships

Students are invited to apply for one-semester, or summer fellowship with the Lafayette libraries’ Special Collections & College Archives. Through sustained focus on bibliographic or archival material, the activity will focus on experiential projects with original historical sources held in Skillman Library.

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College Archives Digital Resources

Explore the history of Lafayette College through a variety of online resources.

Rare Books

Lafayette's rare book holdings of some 15,000 volumes include incunabula—among them the magnificent Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493—and other early imprints reflecting the development of printing during the hand-press period (ca. 1450-1800).

Manuscripts, Art & Artifacts

The College houses nearly one hundred manuscript, art, and artifact collections of national scope. Holdings relate to the Marquis de Lafayette; Lafayette College faculty and alumni; and American artists, politicians, and businesses of note.

College Archives

The College Archives documents the history of Lafayette College from its founding in 1824 to the present day by preserving the administrative records, audio visual materials, photographs, and objects associated with the institution.

Queer Archives Project Digital Humanities Site

The QAP digital humanities project is a timeline-based Scalar site shaped around the dynamic interface among oral history interviews, related archival materials and emergent scholarship and research. Structured through themes generated by the oral histories, the digital humanities project offers an innovative, multi-dimensional platform from which to learn about Queer history, conduct scholarship, and share research. Lafayette students are working side by side with faculty, digital scholarship services specialists and archivists to conceptualize, develop and create the site.

Welcome: Queer Past, Queer Futures...

Available for streaming...

Lafayette College Football Films: 1960-62

Exhibits

All Recent News

Aug 14, 2020

Lasting Legacies, Bright Future: Celebrating 50 Years of Coeducation at Lafayette College

As part of the campus-wide celebration of the arrival of women students on September 10, 1970, the College Archives showcases photographs, documents, and…

Jan 31, 2020

Rapped in Black: The Founding of the Association of Black Collegians

In July of 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy appealed to college and university board presidents to extend equal educational opportunities to the nation’s…

Jan 31, 2020

Strike! Lafayette Student Activism in 1970

Fifty years ago this May and two weeks before final exams, approximately one-third of Lafayette College students coordinated a strike in protest of the…

Lafayette College partners with Archive-It to collect, preserve, and provide access to our institutional web presence through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the World Wide Web.

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