Oral testimony offers one of the most promising methods for documenting idiosyncratic and quotidian stories of the past, especially in places where the understanding of difference can be flattened by rural stereotypes. But almost a half century has passed since the oral history collections in the U of M Morris Archives were augmented. This proposed collaborative seeks to build on previous oral history collections toward new initiatives for recording the history of our region—informed by cutting-edge methods and community collaboration.

This project includes the digitization of 385 oral history tape recordings through an outside vendor, creation of metadata for all the oral histories, and inclusion of most oral histories in the UMN Morris Digital Well. The tapes included a wide variety of oral history materials, including those that tell the story of the University of Minnesota Morris and the history of West Central Minnesota.

The Rodney A. Briggs Library at the University of Minnesota Morris has been awarded a Preservation Assistance Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  The grant will support a general preservation assessment of the materials held in the Archives & Special Collections, which share a space in Briggs Library. 

The Native American Boarding School Timeline Project was initiated in the fall of 2021 to develop and share information with Tribal officials concerning the two Native American boarding schools that operated between 1887 and 1909 on what is now the campus site. Efforts were made to provide documentation of the schools' general history, names of students, tribal affiliation, and health and living conditions. The project produced a detailed timeline with links to documents from local newspapers, Catholic organizations, local government and the National Archives.

The UMN Morris Athletics Timeline was a collaboration between faculty, staff, and students to tell the story of athletics and sports at the University of Minnesota Morris. Using a timeline format, this project explores the people, places, events, and curriculum that have shaped athletics at UMN Morris.

This project includes compiling files of pertinent documents from the UMN Morris Archives (and other resources) on important personalities at the University of Minnesota Morris and writing biographies of these staff/faculty to be made publicly available on the Archives website. This project expands on work first initiated during the 2019 Archives Summer Camp.

As a part of the annual Archives Summer Camp, alumni have returned to UMN Morris for a week in the summer to complete various special projects in the Archives. In the summer of 2016, a project to capture the experiences and histories of UMN Morris faculty, staff, and retirees began. The alumni researched their interviewees, created questions, and interviewed various faculty and staff about their experiences at UMN Morris. Some years included video of the participants, and other years were simply audio.

This project involved finding the documents on the founding of the University of Minnesota Morris in the 1960s, digitizing them into one cohesive collection, creating metadata to make those documents accessible, and creating an online display to tell the story of the creation of the University of Minnesota Morris. This project allows these important materials that tell the history of our institution to be readily available and collected for researchers and those interested in UMN Morris's history.

The UMN Morris Historic Campus Newspaper Digitization Project was initiated in the fall of 2016 at the request of student Jon Antonsen and the Phi Alpha Theta History Club. The project goal was to digitize all of the student newspapers published at the University of Minnesota Morris from 1960 to present and provide online access and search functionality to these newspapers. The project was led by Naomi Skulan, Metadata & Technical Services Coordinator, with much of the work being accomplished by student volunteers.

The project’s aim was to conduct a model records survey of all materials relevant to the history of a single township in Pope County, Minnesota. The project produced an extensive bibliography and database to be used by township officials, genealogists and local historians.