Collecting Policy

Active Collecting Areas

We collect books, manuscripts, archives, artists’ books, zines, audio/visual materials, ephemera, and digital objects that support the teaching and research areas of UNE’s undergraduate curriculum. Areas of focus include arts and humanities, environmental studies, marine science, and the history of the region and its inhabitants.

We seek materials that reflect diverse, underrepresented and unheard voices; and reflect the cultures and social identities of the university’s community

• Maine history, including Wabanaki history and Franco-American culture, to support teaching and experiential learning in history.
• War-time letters and ephemera to add to the World War I and II letters collected by Randall J. Cushing, used extensively in history courses.
• Food and nutrition, including historical cookbooks and recipes, to support to history and nutrition courses.
• Health narratives, health humanities, and patient narratives in various forms such as artists’ books, literature, and zines, form a core area of focus for a broad number of courses taught at UNE.
• Environmental history, climate change narratives, and other materials documenting Maine’s environment and the broader field of environmental studies.
• Artists’ books, small press publications, and zines support teaching in the humanities and arts, and offer a medium for diversifying the collection and representing a broader number of voices and perspectives than do traditional published works.

If you are interested in donating materials to the collection, please contact Education and Outreach Archivist Cathleen Miller.