Taken directly from the ‘Introduction to Archival Research’, “College and university archives are archives that preserve materials relating to a specific academic institution. Such archives may also contain a “special collections” division (see definition below). College and university archives exist first to serve their parent institutions and alumni, and then to serve the public.” These special collections are considered sacred, and rare to a point that they must be sanctioned in an area like that of Santa Clara (Norman F. Martin, S.J. Reading Room). This is important to preserve because these are irreplacable pieces of evidence and history.

Source: Giphy

This leads to Gaillet and his point of how archival history is some work, but if you know how to do it, it can be an extremely helpful tool for your research. Even if you don’t find this ‘Holy Grail’ of information, you learn this “Nancy-Drew like” way of finding the information you need, tracing the clues, and following a path in a meticulous manner.

He also talks about the steps needed when entering such a process which includes tasks and examinations. He says we must do a plethora of things such as determining a research question, categorizing the findings, locate your subject etc. All of these steps are for the sake of having a better and more productive time in a set of archives.