The University Archives at the University of Arkansas Special Collections has manuscript collections covering the span of the history of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville focusing on administrative and academic units, staff and faculty, and students and alumni. Among research requests in the University Archives, requests for photographs are very common. This guide seeks to inform users on handling photographs as well as highlighting manuscript collections and other resources for finding photographs relevant to university history.

This guide is an introduction to photographs in the University Archives and does not include every manuscript collection that contains photographs relating to the University of Arkansas.

University of Arkansas band at halftime. University of Arkansas Bands Records (MC 2002.UA, Series II)

First and foremost, general care and handling protocols for special collections should be observed while handling photographs:

• Food and drinks must be kept out of the reading room and away from materials.
• Pens are not allowed to be used in the reading room; pencil marks are not allowed to be made on materials.
• Your hands should be clean before handling materials.
• Materials should be kept flat, in order, and with no other items placed on top of them.
• All access restrictions should be observed.

For photographs, additional practices are observed:

• Cotton or nitrile gloves should be worn to prevent damaging oils from users' hands from depositing on the photograph.
• If a photograph is in a clear sleeve, it may not be removed.
• If photographs are in an opaque sleeve, remove and later replace carefully to avoid damaging the edges or corners.

Please consult the "Conducting Research in Special Collections" page in this guide for additional information on care and handling.

Browse additional digital collections at the Digital Collections site: https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/