October is American Archives Month

October is celebrated by archivists throughout the nation as Archives Month. This is a time when we push especially hard to promote and celebrate archival collections in museums, historical societies, and libraries. Although published books and 3-dimensional artifacts can usually be found in archival collections, archives generally have unpublished papers as the core of their focus.

Letters, diaries, business records, photographs, and ephemera (concert programs, movie tickets, etc...) are the bulk of archival collections. This material is integral to researchers everywhere, especially sociologists and historians and anyone studying local communities. People can use archival collections to find information about the businesses in local communities, family and neighborhood history, and many other unique discoveries.

Archives are much more than record repositories, they maintain the valuable memories and heritage of a community. Help us celebrate Archives month. Contact the Dickinson Museum Center for more information about maintaining personal papers, donating papers to an archive, researching archival collections, or volunteering time to help organize and maintain these valuable records.