The archives at Harvard are extensive and well known. The University of Chicago established its archives department in 1944. The University of Oklahoma has recently appointed a full time archivist to administer its collections, and the Oklahoma archivist was a recent interested visitor to the Trojan vault. The archives division of Doheny exists not simply to preserve but to serve. It insures preservation of university records and functions as a clearing house for other information.
Students go to the archives for material about the school.
Questions concerning famous students or others connected with the school are answered by the archival material. Archivists are always indebted to private collectors. Photographs, letters, and other saved memoranda write a better history of a school than a historian can reconstruct. From private collections come many of the most valuable items in an archival collection.