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SMU Athletic History: Archives

The Southern Methodist University Archives serves as a research repository for the official administrative and historical records of the University. In addition, the Archives serves as the collective memory of Southern Methodist University.

Materials in the Archives consists of non-current university records, regardless of medium, generated by faculty, staff, and students while conducting the business of the institution. This material includes office files, minutes, photographs, films, correspondence, artifacts and memorabilia, publications, scrapbooks, blueprints, oral history tapes, and manuscript collections

There are over 500 separate collections in the SMU Archives.  A collection can be a single file folder or have as many as 80 boxes. 

Many of the most important collections have finding aids or descriptions of what is in the boxes--along with a history of who created those records.

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Finding aids are the primary way to discover what is in archival boxes.  For a quick tutorial about what to expect when you visit a special collections, check out this explanation from the Society of American Archivists.