First and foremost, the A&SC serves as the official repository for historically significant records relating to the University of Puget Sound since its founding in 1888. These records document the academic and administrative activities of the university as well as the experiences of its students, alumni, faculty, and staff. We have materials from administrative offices and academic departments, as well as student publications, photographs, and ephemera relating to campus life, among other things. A general list of our university records can be found here.

Some records related to the university's history have been digitized, including our student newspaper, The Trail, our student yearbook, Tamanawas, and many decades of the university bulletin and The Alumnus, and Arches. These are excellent resources for locating information about individuals and campus life. We also maintain a digital repository of historic photographs called A Sound Past, which contains approximately 10,000 photographs from our collection. Our university ephemera collection has been digitized through 1964 and includes invitations, public announcements, programs, and advertising materials for the University of Puget Sound. In addition, if you are interested in university history, we have made several historical texts available online for browsing.

The A&SC contains approximately ninety manuscript collections, which are collections of personal or family papers. Our manuscript collections are composed of personal diaries, correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, and ephemera on topics ranging from Northwest politics, history, and logging operations to Methodist missions and travels in the Far East. Many of these collections have finding aids available via Archives West, which provides access to descriptions of primary sources in the western United States. A list of our manuscript collections can be found here. Materials in our manuscript collections that have been digitized and are available online are indicated on that list. Collections with finding aids contain links to the record in Archives West. If there is no finding aid available, please contact us for more information about the collection's contents. 

We have several thousand rare books and artists' books in the A&SC. These books are non-circulating and may be viewed in our reading room only. Many of the books are fragile and require special care when handling. Our rare books and artists' books can be found in the library catalog, Primo.