Special Collections and Archives

Mission and Vision

The mission of the Hilton C. Buley Library is to provide resources, instruction, services, and facilities to support and enhance the teaching, learning, scholarship, and research mission of Southern Connecticut State University. Buley Library Special Collections maintains collections of primary source documents, early-printed materials, artists books, and University archives in order to support instruction and research in our areas of strength. We are open to all, including students and faculty of SCSU, local community members, and outside researchers. Our foremost goal to provide equitable access to these collections for the purpose of inspiring intellectual curiosity and informing interactive learning encounters with primary source materials.

More than this, however, Special Collections faculty aim to make Buley's Special Collections a friendly, welcoming, interactive environment for students, encouraging earning, exploration of primary sources, interaction with the past, and research. Special Collections is not just a place for instruction and research. We hope to encourage a spirit of experimentation and exploration, whether students are looking at material for class work or they are doing personal reading from early editions of favorite books--whether they are looking at leaves from a 15th century illustrated book or a limited edition modern artist's book or both of these side by side. To this end, Buley Special Collections works to make our material available both in the reading room and outside of it through scanned materials, synchronous virtual encounters, video introductions to materials, and physical and digital exhibitions. It also aims to provide interesting, timely, and interactive encounters with special materials through talks led by faculty, staff, and students and through pop-up events.

While the materials that we curate and care for are special, the very fact that they are special drives us to make them available to students, faculty, and the wider community. These special materials must be made available to enrich and inform the intellectual and cultural lives of all who might find them of value.

We look forward to welcoming you into our community of creation, inquiry, and conversation.