LAUC Archives

Types of Records
Adding to the Archives
Basic Archival Definitions
Select Historical Documents

Types of Records

Paper: Paper records are the format created and maintained prior to the prominence of the digital tools. The paper is collected, organized, and described for public use. The Finding Aid (or Register) to collection lists and describes the materials at the folder and box level. The collection is held in The Bancroft Library at Berkeley and managed by the University Archivist.

Born-Digital: Born-digital records are files originally created in an electronic form, such as Doc/Word documents, spreadsheets, web pages, or digital images. The historic value of the content of born-digital records can largely be assessed in the same manner as print or paper records. Born-digital records selected for the LAUC archives have specific digital preservation needs which must also be addressed.

As born-digital files can rapidly become unreadable due to software obsolescence, hardware failure, or file degradation/corruption, these types of files should be transferred to the LAUC Archives for preservation on an annual basis.

Website Archives: The LAUC Web Archives are comprised of LAUC-related websites dating from April 2009 to present. The web archives were captured using the Web Archiving Service (WAS) through the California Digital Library (CDL) until November 2015, when WAS files were migrated to the Internet Archive's Archive-It service.

The LAUC Web Archives currently contains the following archived websites:

http://lauc.wildapricot.org (created between January 2025 to present)
http://lauc.ucop.edu (created between June 4, 2013 and December 2024)
http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/ (created between April 6, 2009, and July 4, 2015)

Adding to the Archives

Statewide records should be collected by the LAUC Secretary or LAUC Records Coordinator and transferred annually to the statewide archive at UC Berkeley, to the attention of the University Archivist. Divisions should also collect and archive records on a regular basis.

Basic Archival Definitions

Public Records: LAUC records are open to access by the public based on University of California system practice.

Currency: Current records are those records necessary for conducting the current business of LAUC and therefore must be readily available to members of the organization. For the purpose of these guidelines, current records are defined as those five years old or less.
Non-current records are those no longer required for the conduct of current business and can either be transferred to an archive for use by public researchers or destroyed. Non-current records are those older than five years.
Generally, current records will be passed along from one chair to the next. Non-current records will be transferred from the chair to either the statewide or appropriate divisional archive or destroyed.

Vital records: Records deemed essential for the continued functioning of the organization. These are documents that establish the purpose and the function(s) of organization, as well as those relating to its legal and financial interests. These records have highest priority in respect to preservation.

Select Historical Documents

LAUC, the first 25 years : a history of the Librarians Association of the University of California, 1967-1992 ; edited by Judy K. Horn and Jefferson P. Selth.
LAUC's Silver Anniversary: Celebrating 25 Years of the Librarians Association of the University of California, 1967-1992
LAUC @50 (FORTHCOMING)
"Cooperative Collection Utilization in the University of California Libraries: a Concept Paper" by Jane A. Kimball, 1991
LAUC Archives Guidelines and Checklist, 2016
Previously posted Opinion Papers and LAUC Newsletters are available in the Web Archives.

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