Research Advice

The Archives staff is eager to help you with your research project, whether it's a short paper, a full-scale thesis, or personal research. Because pertinent information may be found across multiple collections or in several different formats (oral histories, written records, and blueprints, for example), we urge you to get in touch with us well before you begin your research.

We are happy to meet with you to help you develop and revise a research topic, review database search techniques, and consider the possibilities of primary sources. In addition to locating collections, we can help you to best use sources: determine an author's perspective, read bad handwriting, and locate collections outside of the Archives.

To aid research on frequently requested topics, we have developed a series of bibliographies and study guides, and created a listing of helpful links to databases and on-line sites that specialize in primary source material.