Articles

Walking the High Wire: The Impact of Campus Tales and Legends on the College or University Archivist

---

Abstract

College and university archives use outreach to showcase the history documented in their collections. When it comes to making history-based connections with students, alumni, and others, a common area of focus is the telling and retelling of favorite campus tales and legends. Yet beyond their use for outreach, these stories are also a major area of responsibility for the college or university archives. Campus tales and legends can be a source of positive attention and goodwill for the college or university archivist, but they can also be a source of embarrassment, factual error, or conflict. In extreme cases, a college or university archives can even find its existence as a repository for university history being challenged or undermined in ways that are painful and public. Using the University of Maryland Archives as an example, this article illustrates the positive and negative aspects of working with these popular stories and offers an approach for handling these tales to provide maximum benefit for other college and university archives.

How to Cite:

Speck, J. G., (2013) “Walking the High Wire: The Impact of Campus Tales and Legends on the College or University Archivist”, Archival Issues 35(2), 115–126. doi: https://doi.org//archivalissues.10996