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The Professional Papers Program and faculty

The University Archives is responsible for documenting the administrative, cultural, social, and intellectual history of Brigham Young University. The Archives accomplishes this task through a number of different programs. The Professional Papers Program was established in the mid-1990s to help the Archives capture pieces of the intellectual and administrative history of the university. The program is designed to gather basic information about the faculty, staff, and administrators and their activities while employed at Brigham Young University.

An important component of the Professional Papers Program is the acquisition of the personal papers of representative faculty members.

The Brigham Young Academy faculty, 1888

The Brigham Young Academy faculty, 1888

Faculty members and their various activities (including teaching, research, and involvement with professional associations) lie at the heart of the intellectual vitality of Brigham Young University. It is important that this aspect of the university’s history be documented. While the University Archives would prefer to acquire the complete personal papers of every faculty member employed by Brigham Young University, this is not practical or possible given the Archives’ limited resources. The Archives has created a policy to help guide the University Archivist’s selection activities and to ensure that a representative sample of faculty papers is acquired as part of the Professional Papers Program. The Faculty Papers Collecting Policy is available at: Faculty Papers Collecting Policy (2009) This policy aids the University Archivist in making decisions about which faculty members’ papers to acquire and what portions of those papers should be acquired.

The Archives has also created another document to help faculty members understand what types of materials the Archives is interested in. This enables the faculty member to make determinations on what types of materials to save long-term and what types of materials that they can dispose of when they are finished using them. This document is available at: Faculty and staff papers

If you have any questions about the Professional Papers Program or donating faculty papers to the University Archives, please contact the University Archivist at (801) 422-5821 or gordon_daines@byu.edu.

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