University Archives

The University Archives is a diverse collection of materials documenting the history of the growth and development of our campus, faculty, staff, students, and campus life. Included are departmental publications, the administrative records of the university, faculty papers, photographs, theses and dissertations, and oral histories with former faculty members and staff. Digitized content is available but please be aware that the majority of our holdings are not currently available in an electronic format.

Records Management

Contains the UMBC Policy on Records Management. Supplementary pages include guidelines, procedures, tips and an online form for transferring records and other material to the University Archives. Contact the Archivist if you would like to schedule a records management consultation. Learn more…

History of UMBC Research Guide

Down and Dirty Dawg Band play at a spirit rally in the UC Plaza, October 24, 2001.
Down and Dirty Dawg Band play at a spirit rally in the UC Plaza, October 24, 2001. Color photograph. University Photographs, UARC 2013-013-32-0931.

This guide contains a comprehensive timeline and information about the available resources for conducting research on the history of UMBC’s origins, people, departments, and traditions. View the guide at http://lib.guides.umbc.edu/umbchistory.

Other resources

Sharing the Past, Building the Future: UMBC at 50 online exhibit

UMBC timeline (1955-2009)

UMBC: An Evolution, a ten part essay series from The Retriever exploring the development of UMBC from 1955 to 1981.

Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th

UMBC50: Grit & Greatness

Explore Baltimore Heritage UMBC campus tour

University Archives

Search descriptions of the holdings using the Special Collections Search. Search tip: enter Coll* in the Call Number field and “University Archives” (with quotes) in the Collection field to limit your results to the university records and papers. You may browse the catalog records for processed and unprocessed records or review our completed finding aids below.

The University Archives collects departmental records that document the history of our campus. Faculty paper collections, which cover the careers of individuals who played key roles in the history of UMBC and/or their field, are also collected on a limited basis. The University Archives collecting policy is available online and a faculty papers collecting policy is in development. Contact the Archivist with questions about these collections. Please note that that majority of the University Archives records and papers are unprocessed. Unprocessed collections are still open for research with permission and prior review by the Archivist.

Department Records

Faculty papers

On occasion, faculty paper collections are accepted into the University Archives. These collections may contain personal files relating to the faculty member’s teaching, research, and administrative duties at UMBC.

University Photographs

Search tip: Use the Special Collections Search and enter University Photographs as the “Collection title” to limit your search to the University Photographs. Box level records are available through the Special Collections Search, as well as item-level records for any digitized photos. If you would only like to browse our digitized photographs, please use the Digital Collections search.

The University photographs document the growth of our physical campus, the active student life, and the many faculty and staff that have contributed to UMBC since the groundbreaking in 1965. Photographs have been donated to the University Archives by the student newspaper, Institutional Advancement, and staff, students, and alumni. Photographs can be viewed in the Special Collections reading room or scanned on request per our Rights & Reproductions policy.

University Publications

Search tip: Use the Special Collections Search and enter UPUB in the Call Number field to limit your results to the university publications. Additional publications may not yet be cataloged, so please contact the Archivist for additional assistance.

The university publications collection includes campus catalogs, newsletters, annual reports, brochures, The Retriever Weekly (the student newspaper), and student publications as well as scientific and technical reports published by the research organizations within UMBC.

Faculty/Staff publications

Use the Library Catalog (catalogusmai) to access these publications. To limit your search to the faculty and staff publications, select “UMBC Faculty/Staff Publications” from the Named Collections drop-down menu. Faculty and staff authored publications are not a part of the university publications but they are actively collected by the Special Collections department.

Oral Histories

Oral history interviews have been conducted with UMBC faculty, staff, and alumni in the context of several different initiatives. Dr. Edward Orser led an oral history project in the 1990s in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of UMBC. Following the success of this project, the UMBC Founders Oral History Project was established and managed through the Martha Ross Center for Oral History. Most recently, additional oral histories are being conducted in preparation for the 50th anniversary in 2016 and an anticipated published history of UMBC.

Several use restrictions guide access to the oral history collection; please review the document, “Use of UMBC Oral Histories,” for additional information. If you have further questions or would like to schedule a time to review the oral history materials, please contact Special Collections Processing Archivist Laurainne Ojo-Ohikuare at lojoohi1@umbc.edu or 410-455-6290.