This policy focuses only on the collection of those historical records created by the people, agencies, and businesses of our region outside of the University.
The Canaday Center’s vision is to help foster an informed, engaged, and inclusive community by supporting teaching, research, and the administrative functions of the university, as well as the research needs of the general public, through the collection, preservation, and provision of access to rare and culturally significant materials like historical photographs, documents, and correspondence, ensuring that the study of the past remains vital to the future.
The Center does this through the fulfillment of the objectives of the Manuscripts Collecting Policy.
The Manuscripts Collecting Policy outlines the guidelines for carrying out selection and acquisition of manuscripts collections at the Canaday Center. Collection development involves identifying potential materials, appraising their historical and research value, determining the cost to maintain them, and acquiring materials through donor agreements.
Collection development decisions are based on current and future user needs. Our audience includes:
The collecting priorities of the Ward M. Canaday Center focus on subjects that augment the strengths of its present holdings, with an emphasis on 20th century materials. Our geographic collecting focus is primarily but not exclusively Toledo and Northwest Ohio.
Our areas of emphasis include:
Disability. We wish to document the history of disability in the region. Therefore, we seek to collect the records of individuals involved with the disability community in this area. We also seek to collect the papers of individuals involved in the disability rights movement on both regional and national levels.
Business, Industry, Politics and Law. We would like to build on an already strong foundation of 19th and 20th century commercial and industrial, and political activities in Toledo, by focusing on the records of businesses and industries unique to Toledo or with a long history in this community. Further, we aim to build on our collections of Toledo Mayoral and City Council papers by collecting the papers of other individuals involved in politics in this region including senators and members of congress representing Toledo, as well as judges, and elected and appointed officials in various local and state offices.
History of Medicine. The Center is interested in collecting records relating to the history of medicine in northwest Ohio, in particular, materials leading up to the founding of the Medical College of Ohio. That history can be traced back to the establishment of the Lucas County Poor Farm in 1838 (later known as the Lucas County Infirmary) and continued with the establishment of the Toledo State Hospital, and Maumee Valley Hospital.
Women. With the goal of developing a significant repository for women's studies and women's history resources, we seek to expand our existing holdings by collecting materials relating to the personal and professional lives of women. Therefore we want to acquire the records of women and the organizations they formed and lead, with a particular focus on northwest Ohio.
Minorities, Cultural Groups, and Religious Organizations. The City of Toledo and its environs have a large and diverse population of people who were born in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, or whose parents or grandparents came here from other countries. These individuals and communities play an important role in the culture and history of the city. Consequently, we wish to document the ethnic communities in Toledo and Northwest Ohio in general, but particularly as they relate to other collection strengths and strategies such as literature, politics, civic and social welfare activities, and political activity. We are interested in the personal papers of European, Asian, Arab and African-American men and women and the organizational records of groups which are comprised or headed by these individuals or whose agendas focus on issues that affect ethnic communities in Toledo and Northwest Ohio.
Social Welfare, Politics, and Counter Culture. One of our collecting strengths historically has been the papers and records of individuals and organizations involved in improving the community through non-profit, charitable and/or government funded efforts ranging from city beautification to providing housing and healthcare to transient women and children. We seek to expand our holdings in this area by collecting the papers of community activists and other leaders along with the records of civic groups and social welfare agencies in Toledo and Northwest Ohio. We are interested in acquiring personal and professional papers as well as organizational records, oral interviews, photographs, printed materials and ephemeral items.
In addition, the Canaday Center aims to create a repository for materials related to individuals and organizations involved in urban liberalism and social reform. The city of Toledo played a significant role in the Progressive Movement in the early part of the 20th century. In order to document this important period in our history, we seek to build on existing holdings with materials related to political and social movements such as the Labor Movement, the Peace Movement and other anti-war activities, the Progressive Education Movement, and Woman Suffrage. This collection would not be complete without documentation of more recent movements including the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, and the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Rights Movement. We are also interested in collecting materials related other reform movements that document various forms of radicalism in Toledo and Northwest Ohio, as well as papers of politicians, activists, and leaders of grass roots political organizations, political parties, and advocacy organizations.
Sports and Recreation. Exploring the ways in which people in Toledo and Northwest Ohio have spent their leisure time is an excellent way to better understand the culture as a whole. To this end, we are interested in preserving the records of clubs and organizations formed as a result of a collective interest in an activity such as photography, athletics, or glass collecting. We would like to see our holdings grow with the addition of collections not only from existing clubs, but also materials from groups that are no longer active. These materials consist of organizational documents, membership materials, meeting minutes, printed materials, photographs, posters and other ephemera.
Literature, Publishing and Journalism. We wish to document the lives, literary and professional development, and publishing history of authors, journalists, and publishers, with a particular focus on those from northwest Ohio or those related to our existing rare book collection. Therefore we want to acquire the personal papers, literary manuscripts, publisher's correspondence, press records, and oral interviews by those writers and presses we document comprehensively.
Art, Music, Cinema and Theater. The Center also seeks to document individuals and groups involved in fine arts in our region. These materials are similar to literary manuscripts and include published and unpublished sheet music, stage and screenplays, scripts, and two dimensional art forms such as photographs, drawings and lithographs, research notes generated as a part of these creative efforts, correspondence, diaries, journals, teaching materials, printed materials, and ephemera amassed by amateur and professional individuals and groups in this category.
Veterans and War. Military history continues to be a popular area of research for students and scholars as well as the general public. Therefore, we are interested in acquiring materials documenting America’s wars. Materials of particular interest to the Canaday Center in this category include correspondence, diaries, journals, maps, drawings, and ephemeral materials of soldiers and other participants in war from northwest Ohio. Also of interest are materials that document organized groups such as regiments, nursing corps, or veteran's organizations.
SUBJECTS AND RECORD TYPES WHICH WE DO NOT COLLECT
Collections unrelated to Toledo and Northwest Ohio (with the exception disability history)
Personal financial records, including checks and tax returns
Confidential files
Medical records
Duplicates of any items
Photocopies or other reproductions of original materials, unless the originals are no longer in existence or not available to the public
Personal papers
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Ephemeral materials
Audio recordings
Film and videos
Oral interviews
Selected electronic media
Printed materials
Since the Canaday Center does not have a dedicated in-house preservation and conservation unit, we are unable to accept materials that are damaged or have high repair or storage costs.
Costs associated with reformatting media as well as the availability of playback machines influence the media formats that we can accept. Formats that we can accept generally include:
Audio cassettes
DVDs/CDS
VHS tapes
Photographs
Negatives
Slides
Records in electronic format will be considered if they are accessible for research, can be migrated and include appropriate metadata. Such materials will either be accessible via a patron computer in our Reading Room or online via our institution’s digital repository.
The Canaday Center prefers to acquire special collections via donation. For information on how to donate to the Canaday Center, please see the Donors tab.
Due to the unique and irreplaceable nature of much of the materials in our holdings, the Canaday Center rarely loans items out to other institutions. All loans are considered on an individual basis and borrowers must complete an agreement form. Please contact the University Archivist, Sara Mouch (sara.mouch@utoledo.edu), to discuss the possibility of a loan.