Service Alert
The Lake Forest College Archives and Special Collections is open to Lake Forest College students, faculty, and staff, and to the public. No affiliation with the college is required. Our collections are non-circulating (must be viewed in the Reading Room) and access to materials is currently by appointment only to allow staff time to prepare and pull requested items from our closed stacks. Appointments are available from 8:30 AM-4:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Minimum 24-hours notice for appointments is appreciated.
Researchers must complete a registration form once per academic year.
Archives and Special Collections are not available for physical borrowing via Interlibrary Loan, but portions may be scanned and shared electronically upon request. Please anticipate up to four business days turnaround time.
Most collections are open for research with no restrictions. Where restrictions exist as set by the donor, they will be indicated in the Conditions Governing Access note of the collection’s finding aid.
All unprocessed collections are closed for research use. Researchers interested in an unprocessed collection may contact the Archivist & Librarian for Special Collections at archives@lakeforest.edu.
Select college records are closed for a set period of time:
Records of the Office of the President
20 years after the end of the president’s term.
Records of College Offices
20 years after the date of creation.
Records of the Board of Trustees and Its Committees
40 years from the date of creation.
Financial Records
75 years from the date of creation. This excludes public financial records.
Student Records (protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
75 years from the date of creation. This includes credentials, grades, correspondence, applications, student work, letters of recommendation, internship program records, disciplinary files, and other records relating to individual students.
Personnel-Related Records
75 years from the date of creation. This includes records of searches and appointments, tenure, reappointment, and promotion, disciplinary files, performance evaluations, salary figures, and other records relating to the performance of specific employees.
The Archives and Special Collections Reading Room is located in Room 004 of the Lower Level of Donnelley and Lee Library, which is part of Lake Forest College’s Middle Campus. Please see our Plan Your Visit page for further details.
To ensure the continued preservation and future availability of archival collections, researchers must comply with the rules of the Reading Room.
In cases of documents of high fragility, the Archivist may require researchers to view reproductions rather than the original.
When the Archives is busy, Lake Forest College affiliated patrons will have priority for research assistance and reading room seats.
Research questions are welcome and will be met with a prompt reply especially when they are brief, specific, and relate to materials in our collections. Whenever possible, questions beyond the scope of our collections will result in a referral to another appropriate repository. For more in-depth research questions, paid researchers may be available to assist patrons.
The mission of the Lake Forest College Archives and Special Collections is: to support and strengthen the pursuit of academic excellence by the students at the College; to collect, preserve, and provide access to College permanent records for use in College business and by researchers; and to promote a sense of community by recording the experiences and telling the story of students, faculty and staff at the College.
As stated in the College’s Forester Future 2023-2028 Plan, the College seeks to “expand and align institutional resources that enhance the student experience and maximize the engagement and talent of our faculty and staff.” Archives and Special Collections supports these goals by providing research opportunities, instruction sessions, and exposure to a broad array of historical primary source material.
To integrate the Archives and Special Collections into the curriculum, manuscript and rare book collection development will be in part faculty-driven. Faculty are encouraged to inform the archivist of subjects of long-term interest and identify manuscript collections and rare books related to the curriculum through connections with individuals and organizations.
The Archives will collect College records of all formats and media, from the founding of the College to the present. These collections will be made available to the College community and outside researchers (contingent on necessary restrictions). A Records Management Policy and associated records schedules will guide offices in transferring their records to Archives and Special Collections.
Papers of faculty and alumni will be considered for the College Archives, with collections related to the College and curricular needs being of special interest. Also of special interest are the records of student organizations. The Archives will not collect faculty publications, but faculty may request that their publications be added to the Library's circulating collection. In the case of duplicate materials, the Archives will only keep 2 copies (with the exception of our most high-use collections for which we will keep 3 copies).
Chicago
Chicago history will remain an area of collecting to support first-year seminars on Chicago and the overall emphasis of Chicago in the curriculum. The archives will seek to complement the collections of other archives in the area, not compete. One of our significant collections related to Chicago is the Edward H. Bennett Collection, which includes copies of the 1909 Plan of Chicago.
Publishing
The Joseph Medill Patterson Papers remains one of our most used collections. The papers document Patterson's career as co-publisher and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and Liberty magazine. The papers include Patterson's directives to managerial staff, and his correspondence with leading American journalists and cartoonists. The College will continue collecting in the area of Chicago publishing and particularly of local independent presses.
Art and Architecture
In the past, the College has collected material on City of Lake Forest architecture as well as acquiring the research papers of art history professor Franz Schulze which include all his research on architect Philip Johnson. The College also holds architectural plans for the City of Lake Forest, including Market Square. While we will continue to collect selectively in this area, City of Lake Forest estates will not be a primary area of collecting moving forward, unless there is a connection to the College.
City of Lake Forest
The College and the City’s early history are closely tied, and thus the College will collect material related to the history of the City of Lake Forest, and particularly its Presbyterian and Scottish roots. Special Collections holds the papers of the founding organization of the city, the Lake Forest Association. The College will work closely with the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society to avoid duplication and find the best home for these materials.
Railroads
We collect selectively in the area of railroad history for the North Shore and Chicago. Potential donations must be substantially related to the metropolitan Chicago area or have a significant component that supports the College’s curriculum. Special Collections is no longer maintaining or collecting rail magazines, nor do we accept artifacts. Types of acceptable materials include photographs and manuscript collections.
Researchers are required to request permission from the Archivist & Librarian for Special Collections to publish or to release media created using the contents of Archives and Special Collections materials.
To the extent allowed, Lake Forest College will ordinarily grant one-time publication and media production rights on request. In granting single-work permission to publish or to produce media, Lake Forest College does not surrender its own right to publish or to release media created from materials in its collections or to grant permission to others to publish them.
The Archivist can only grant permission to publish those materials in its holdings for which the College owns copyright.
If single-work, one-time permission to publish or to release media is granted, the location of the used material must be cited in the published work. Please cite as: “Item description,” [Collection Title], [Collection Identifier], Archives and Special Collections, Lake Forest College.
Lake Forest College does not assume responsibility for infringement of copyright in the material held by others.
To make a request, please download the Permissions Form, fill it out, and email it to archives@lakeforest.edu.
Photocopies will be made by staff upon request, depending on the condition of materials, at a rate of 10¢ per page. Shipping and handling will be charged if necessary.
Digitization of materials by staff is free, but due to small staff size this is limited to one hour of scanning.
Researchers are permitted to bring digital cameras or camera phones into the Archives to take their own images. Please do not use flash photography, as it can damage materials.
Copying and scanning may be subject to copyright restrictions.
