University Archives and Special Collections is conscious of its responsibility to collect IIT’s history back to its earliest roots, including its relations with its neighborhood. In the fall of 2018, the unit discovered a scrapbook on eBay that had been assembled by an Armour Institute student in around 1910. The posting’s sample photographs demonstrated that the scrapbook not only documented aspects of on-campus student life, but also people and institutions of the surrounding neighborhood. On the strength of that evaluation, UASC and Galvin Library decided to purchase the scrapbook.

The Kemper Room in Galvin Library is hosting an exhibit of work by Benjamin de Brie Taylor, artist and educator, through the end of November. Brie Taylor is a former Director of the Institute of Design, and Professor Emeritus. His book, "Design Lessons From Nature" explores the significance of the natural world in an artist's development, and is based on an intro-level art class he taught at the Pratt Institute in 1968.

University Archives and Special Collections is proud to announce the launch of a new archival finding aid portal! The new portal, which is located at findingaids.archives.iit.edu, contains finding aids that describe our archival collections. Finding aids should now be easier to find and understand, and users can now print a finding aid or request an in-person consultation of archival materials straight from the record in our database.