HCC Archives: Home

Are you interested in researching in the archives? 

Whether you are curious about what student life was like when HCC first opened, or are looking for photographs from the 1996 graduation ceremony, we've got you covered! The Brish Library Archives preserves HCC's history and brings it to its students. 

To view materials in the archives please schedule an appointment prior to visiting. This will provide the archivist time to retrieve the desired collections.

To make an appointment call or email Alexis Heywood, Archives and Reference Librarian. 

Hours:

Please schedule an appointment to visit the Archives during normal library hours. 

Monday-Thursday: 8:30 am-6:00 pm

Friday: 8:30 am-4:30 pm

Saturday-Sunday: Closed

Location: 

The HCC Archives is located on the second floor of the Learning Resource Center as a part of the William M. Brish Library. 

An archive is a place where items of historical value are kept to help preserve them and make them accessible to researchers. Most colleges and universities have an archive on campus to collect and preserve materials related to the college and its history. Some other types of archives include: government archives, business or corporate archives, or museum archives. 

Archives collect all types of materials, from paper-based materials to photographs, film or even artifacts. The job of the archivist is to preserve the materials and make them available for researchers to use. Archival materials are arranged differently than regular library materials. They are arranged into collections that vary in size and content. Most materials found in an archives are Primary Sources, or first-hand accounts of an event by someone who witnessed it. 

Common Terms Used in the Archives

To help you better prepare for using archival materials, please review some of these common terms used by archivists:

Finding Aid: A tool that facilitates discovery of information within a collection of records. - A description of records that gives researchers access to and understanding of a collection of items. 

Collection: A group of archival materials that is intentionally arranged based on subject, form, geographic scope, or some other common characteristic. 

Provenance and Original Order: 

• Provenance: The origin or source of an item. -Information regarding the source and ownership of an item(s). 
• Original Order: The organization and sequence of records established by the creator of the records. 
• Archives will often follow the principles of provenance and original order when creating collections. This means items from two different origins should not be placed in the same collection, and that items in a collection should be kept in the same order that they were created in. 

For more definitions, check out the Society of American Archivists Glossary.