Documenting Student Life: Using Omeka To Connect Students To The University Archives

Many institutional archives struggle to gain and maintain student participation in documenting the student experience. The history, images, and records of students and their various organizations are fundamental to the narrative of the university. Capturing the experiences of students and campus life is a difficult task as students create organizations, plan and attend events, and maintain a social media presence, all of which are rarely documented in university archives. At this institution, the Special Collections department wanted to increase students’ use of services and resources, and increase student donations to the archives to grow student-centered collections