About the Collection
Scope of the University Archives
- University publications, general and special, including catalogs and bulletins, newsletters, press releases, and promotional material
- Records of the administrative offices, academic departments, and governing bodies of the university, including minutes, correspondence, memoranda, reports
- Architectural and landscaping plans, blueprints, and artists’ renderings, maps, master plans and other campus planning documents
- Personal papers, including correspondence, diaries, memoirs, photographs, memorabilia and scrapbooks
- Records of student organizations and activities, including minutes, correspondence, publications, ephemera, memorabilia and realia, including scrapbooks, posters, and brochures
- Audio and visual material, including photographs and photo albums, negatives, transparencies, motion pictures, audiotape
- Material from alumni and their organizations, including organizational records, publications and ephemera, when such materials are judged to reflect significant events and aspects of the university’s history
- Master copies of the microfiche of senior projects and master’s theses written by students at Cal Poly
- Monographs written by Cal Poly faculty and administrators
Examples of Holdings
- Presidential Papers/Speeches
- Office of the President Annual Report
- Cal Poly Master Plan
- Cal Poly Pocket Facts
- Athletics Programs and Media Guides
Campus Publications
- Catalog of the California Polytechnic and Bulletin of Information (1903 - )
- El Mustang (1938-1942; 1945-1967) and The Mustang Daily (1967-present)
- Polytechnic Journal — Cal Poly's first student publication served as news medium, literary journal, and yearbook (1906-1926)
- El Rodeo (1927-1980, 1990)— the Cal Poly yearbook, last published in 1990
- The Polygram — Cal Poly’s first newspaper (1916-1932)
- Mustang Roundup — the campus wartime publication (1942-1946)
- Green & Gold — a magazine for and about Cal Poly alumni (1949-1957)
- Cal Poly Today (1962 - 1997) — quarterly newsletter
- Cal Poly Magazine (1997 - present) — quarterly newsletter (formerly Cal Poly Today)
Cal Poly Authors Policy Statement
The University Archives Department collects commercially published monographs written or compiled by members of the university’s faculty. These monographs are placed in the Cal Poly Authors Collection and housed in University Archives. The purpose of this collection is to preserve a record of the scholarly endeavors of the faculty. Materials in this collection are available for use in the University Archives, for exhibitions or for temporary reassignment to the Reserve Room Collection at the discretion of Special Collections staff.
Faculty members who have published are encouraged to provide courtesy copies from their publishers to the Kennedy Library for this collection. Signed copies of faculty monographs are particularly prized.
Excluded from the collection are lab manuals, pamphlets, workbooks, self-published materials and multiple copies of the same title. New editions of older works that are substantially revised will be considered. Donations of such publications are accepted for inclusion in the collection. Second copies may be ordered at the author’s request.
Journal articles, conference proceedings, presentations, or other non-monographic scholarly work produced at Cal Poly is digitized and placed in Cal Poly’s institutional repository.
Requests to add new titles to this collection may be submitted to Collection Development for review with Special Collections. Titles that fit with this collection policy will be added and charged to the funding code for the relevant academic department.
Formats of Primary Source Materials Collected
University Archives acquires through gift or transfer unpublished original materials, including administrative records, agendas and minutes, correspondence, presidents’ papers, diaries, art and architectural drawings, reports, journals, photographs, motion pictures and other visual media, maps, sound recordings, and other materials. University Archives also acquires published materials about Cal Poly or created at Cal Poly.
Collecting Procedures
The University Archivist and University Archives staff are authorized to:
- Develop collecting policies and documentation strategies that provide for the systematic management of the archival record of Cal Poly
- Review all university records, prior to their disposal or destruction, for the purpose of selecting records for retention in the University Archives
- Negotiate for the transfer of archival materials from their originating office to the University Archives
- Identify collections and materials that are physically maintained outside the Library
- Seal records which require confidential treatment as mandated by law or by conditions of transfer or gift
Donating Material
The University Archives welcomes additions to its holdings. In particular, the University Archives seeks unpublished personal papers such as correspondence, diaries, memoirs; photographs and photo albums; scrapbooks, and memorabilia. Such materials enlighten us, in ways in which the official records cannot, about the importance of the Cal Poly experience to students, faculty, staff, and alumni, their communities and their families.
Check out our Gifts page for more information about donating materials to University Archives.
