Library History

Special Collections

When the General Library Building, then known as JUL, was built in 1941, space was allocated in the building for storage of the rare books and manuscripts which had been acquired by the Vanderbilt libraries. A Treasure Room was established on the fourth floor, south wing, to provide access to these materials and was later moved to more spacious quarters on the eighth floor. Funding for this room was provided by Colonel Granville Sevier as a memorial to John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee. This space is now occupied by the W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies.

The Special Collections department was formally organized in 1965. Still occupying space on the fourth floor of JUL, it focused on collecting material on the history of the university, manuscripts, and rare books in order to provide primary source material for graduate research. When the H. Fort Flowers wing of the library was built in 1969, Special Collections was moved to the new wing and featured a Fugitive Room which showcased the Jesse E. Wills Fugitive/Agrarian Collection, a collection of books by and about the Fugitive and Agrarian literary movements at Vanderbilt in the 1920s. Jesse Wills, a member of the Fugitive literary group and chairman of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust from 1967 to 1976, was one of the primary founders of this addition to the department and actively sponsored the acquisition of material to support it.

Today, Special Collections can boast of a rich collection of rare books, photographs, and manuscript collections. It also serves as the primary access point for the University Archives, a depository of papers and publications which document the history of the university.

University Archives

When Special Collections was established in 1965, part of the department’s mission was to establish and maintain an archive of university-related material to document the history of the university. At the time of its establishment, records and university publications were scattered all over campus. The patient efforts of Woodrow W. Wasson, Vanderbilt’s first University Archivist, brought all these diverse materials together in one location. Ultimately, the volume of the collection became so great that a separate storage facility had to be used to store much of the material. In addition to University department records, the Archives also includes copies of student publications, dissertations, and publications issued by Vanderbilt University Press. After the merger of Peabody College and Vanderbilt University in 1979, the Archives expanded to include the records and publications of Peabody College as well. Due to the confidential nature of some of the material, only portions of the Archives are available to the public.

Vanderbilt University Photographic Archives

The Vanderbilt University Photographic Archives was founded in 1973, shortly after the university’s centennial celebration. Originally housed in Alumni Memorial Hall, the Photographic Archive was transferred to the Special Collections department in 1981. The mission of the Archives is to collect and preserve photographs which document the history of the university. From an initial collection of a few hundred images, the collection now numbers over 300,000 photographs.

In 2020, the Vanderbilt University Photographic Archives was incorporated into the Vanderbilt Media Database.

Departmental History Timeline

• October 5, 1963: The Vanderbilt University Archives was authorized by action of the Board of Trust, one day after Chancellor Heard was installed.
• May 6, 1967: The Vanderbilt Board of Trust passed a regulation regarding the disposition of Vanderbilt records. This regulation is as follows:
  MATERIAL FOR THE VANDERBILT ARCHIVES The Board of Trust voted to give authority to the following statement concerning material for the Vanderbilt University archives: (May 6, 1967) All administrative officers of the University, including officers of instruction whose regular or occasional performance of administrative duties puts them in possession of files, records, or documents pertaining to their official duties, are requested to observe the following regulations:

1. 1. The archives of the official activities of University officers and offices are the property of the university.
   2. Such property is not to be destroyed without the approval of a committee of three consisting of (a) the University Archivist, (b) the Secretary of the University, (c) the officer in charge of the department where the papers accumulate.
   3. The officer in charge of each administrative office will be the judge as to how long it is convenient to hold papers in his own office under his direct control.
   4. All archivable material, when no longer wanted in the office to which it pertains, shall be sent to the University Archives.

This regulation was amended on September 5, 1972 to include an important stipulation:
The archives of the official activities of university officers and offices are the property of the university, and are not to be moved from the University premises.

• March 1, 1965 – August 1, 1969: Woodrow Wilson Wasson served as Curator of Special Collections and University Archivist. Wasson acquainted Vanderbilt administrators with archival principles and techniques, located archival material on campus and began the orderly transfer of records to the Archives.
• September 1, 1969 – June 21, 1973: Susan Haddock served as Special Collections Librarian and Assistant Archivist. She encouraged the deposit of archival materials and developed a system of creating finding aids for the various collections.
• August 1973: Henry Lee Swint was named Vanderbilt University Archivist in addition to his tenured appointment as Holland N. McTyeire Professor of History and his responsibilities as historian of the University. Professor Swint gathered the historical record of Vanderbilt from all parts of the campus and the nation in connection with his extensive research to write the centennial history of the University.” The centennial history project was later taken over by Professor Paul Conkin who produced the history of Vanderbilt in the form of the book, Gone With the Ivy. The Archivist and Special Collections Librarian cooperated in the transfer of University records to the Archives where they were processed, maintained, and given reference access by the Library staff. Professor Swint retired in 1977.
• October 1973: Marice Wolfe was appointed Head of Special Collections.
• June 1982: Addressing the questions of the secure establishment of the Archives and of the rights and responsibilities of the University Archivist, the Vanderbilt University Archives Committee recommended in 1982 that John Poindexter, then Alumni Secretary, be named Conservator of University History and that Marice Wolfe be named University Archivist. University President Emmett Fields made the appointments.
• October 2000: Marice Wolfe retired from Vanderbilt.
• 2001: Juanita Murray was hired to the position of Head of Special Collections and University Archivist.
• 2020: Kathy Smith was appointed University Archivist.