Gifts and Donations

The Archives benefits from the generosity of the Syracuse University community. Donations of documents, scrapbooks, photographs, and memorabilia that help tell the story of the University, its students, faculty, and staff are always welcome.

If you would like to donate materials to the Archives, please contact staff at archives@syr.edu or call 315/443-3335.

While there is no required cash gift associated with the donation of materials, conserving and indexing collections, re-housing them in acid-free folders and boxes, storing them in an environmentally-controlled facility, and providing worldwide access via the web are costly tasks. Support from individuals and organizations who donate records is always appreciated.

If you would like to financially support the work of the Archives in its efforts to process and preserve the history of SU, please contact Jim Broschart, Director of Regional Development, at 315/443-1120 or by email at jjbrosch@syr.edu.

Your generous donation could be used to purchase acid-free boxes and folders, create an historical exhibition, hire a student worker for a semester, or scan a portion of the 750,000 visual images in the Archives. Some major projects await funding such as those listed below. Your gift to the Archives will ensure that we are able to continue our vital work toward scholarly research-and help support The Campaign for Syracuse University by driving our vision of Scholarship in Action even farther ahead.

Pan Am Flight 103 / Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives was established in 1990 to house records relating to Pan Am Flight 103, destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988, killing 270. Thirty-five students studying abroad with Syracuse University were killed in the attack. The Archives brings together in one place materials generated regarding the disaster; makes those materials available for research; and provides a place to personalize those whose lives were lost. Included are records not only of Syracuse University and our students, but records of ALL 270 victims and other involved individuals and organizations.

The Daily Orange, the University's student newspaper, dates from 1903. The Archives hopes to digitize all issues back to 1903 and make them available to researchers on-line. The D.O. is used daily to answer queries regarding the history of academics, student government, events, protests, social life and athletics. Much of the content however - articles, photographs, advertisements, comics, individual names - are lost to research because there is no effective way of full-text searching other than scanning the issues page by page.

Motion Picture Films dating from 1910 are deteriorating and need to be transferred to a newer and more stable medium. Many of these 1800 films are of football or basketball games, but the list also includes Winter on the Quad ca. 1937; the Opening of the Thompson Road Engineering Facility in 1949; ROTC Review and Weekend, 1941; Medical School: Laying of Cornerstone by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936; and Commencement 1965 with Hubert H. Humphrey.

Lantern Slides of natural and geographic sites around the world, slides of Central New York, and some Syracuse University athletic events are in fragile condition. The intent is to preserve and scan this collection of 2,000 glass slides dating from the beginning of the last century.