CSU Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections Celebrates 50 Years of Preserving University History
Join CSU Libraries for the official festivities on March 5, 2026 at Morgan Library!
1975
CSU Libraries Archives and Special Collections was founded on July 1, 1975, born out of History Professor Dr. James E. Hansen’s efforts to write Democracy’s College in the Centennial State: A History of Colorado State University, 1870-1974, for the university’s centennial.
With little formal effort to collect the institution’s history, early efforts focused on gathering materials from the Administration Building, such as the records of President’s Office, Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, faculty papers, and from Morgan Library, such as Board of Governor’s minutes, the Rocky Mountain Collegian student newspaper, and the Silver Spruce campus yearbook. Library Dean Dr. Lemoyne Anderson created space in a corner of the Morgan Library basement to gather these materials behind makeshift pegboard walls, where Hansen spent time inventorying and organizing the materials. In 1975, the CSU Board of Governors at their June meeting, created the University Archives and appointed special collections librarian John Newman as its first director.
1981-2001
CSU Archives soon grew. In 1981, Hansen worked with CSU Board of Governors member and Director of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union John Stencel, to gather and make available records from agricultural organizations across Colorado. Some records had been housed offsite in a building managed by the History Department. As the need for space grew, Archives and Collections moved from the Morgan Library basement to a secure location on the second floor in 1997, mere weeks before the Spring Creek flood inundated most of campus, including the Morgan Library basement. Starting in 2001, in partnership with CSU’s Colorado Water Center, Archives and Special Collections began collecting records from organizations and individuals associated with water law, engineering, CSU faculty, and ditch and reservoir companies.
2004
In 2004, CSU opened the Book Annex to provide additional storage for materials that could not be accommodated in Morgan Library. The archive provided professional training for graduate students in the History Department beginning in the late 1970s under Dr. Hansen’s mentorship under its new Public History graduate program. The partnership between Archives and History provided labor to process and make available collections, and the program’s graduates went on to work for local and national entities such as the Fort Collins Local History Archive, History Colorado, and Kraft Foods. Today, Archives and Special Collections employs work-study and graduate students, providing practical experience to young adults considering library and archives professions.
2025
In 2025, CSU Archives and Special Collections is home to more than 500 archival collections and 20,000 rare books. The department has taken significant steps to ensure access to its collections through digitization and digital preservation. These digitized files, amounting to more than 150 TB, are made available in the university’s digital repository, Mountain Scholar, which also holds works from faculty, students, and departments. Archives and Special Collections staff and collections empower research and artistry at Colorado State University and around the world. We provide instruction to university classes, offer tours to community members, provide reference services to an array of research queries, provide access to in-person research, and sponsors three research grants for visiting scholars to use its collections.
