Welcome to Archives and Special Collections

For information on how to make donations, please see our Policies and Procedures.

Special Collections 

Our special collections houses rare books, regional history, theses and dissertations, and more.

Also see the Valdosta State University Flickr Page

Announcing:

The Hugh and Joan Bailey Archival Research Travel Fund

The VSU Archives and Special Collections has numerous collections worthy of scholarly study. We have 4000 linear feet of archival materials, 5000 books in special collections relating to Georgia and 350 rare books. The Bailey Travel Fund exists to help fund out of area researchers to come to Valdosta and use our collections for research. Up to 1000 annually is available to defray travel costs for any researcher who wants to use the resources available in our archives and special collections. The award is competitive and depends on how well the research topic fits the collections of the VSU Archives and Special Collections. Our website and ARCHON finding aids are located here: https://www.valdosta.edu/academics/library/depts/archives-and-special-collections/.Our collections include 115 years of college history, women’s history, some military history, civil rights and integration, biographies, civil war documents, literature, rare books, 500 digitized oral histories relating to Georgia, and numerous other collections.

The application process is a letter and a CV describing your interest in our collections. The archives will be happy to assist you in using our various finding aids to help formulate your letter and make sure you have found all resources that apply to your research question. Letters and CV’s are due OCTOBER 15 to the Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections at archives@valdosta.edu , with the subject line Research Travel Fund. Awards will be made in November and you will have from January through December of the following year to make your trip. We look forward to serving you in our archives.

2018 Owens Rare Book Collection

We are very proud to have the Owens/McRae collection at Odum Library, Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections. The books date from 1507 to 1891 and most are written in Spanish. One Spanish book from 1589 is the first edition of the Emblemas Horales by Don J nan de Morozco y Covarruvias.

The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South,

Presented by the speaker and author Wayne A. Wiegand. April 12, 2018 2:00PM at Odum Library Auditorium at Valdosta State University. 

50 States of Preservation: Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia. APRIL 3, 2017 | BY LEAH WEINRYB GROHSGAL

New Photographs Digitized!

The Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections is currently processing the Spectator Negatives, 1980-1985 Collection. These photographs were taken by Valdosta State College Spectator staff in the early to mid-1980's. The first batch of photographs have been uploaded to flickr. You can view them online at https://flic.kr/s/aHskzyhDyC. If you recognize anybody or any event depicted in the photos, please comment. 

Valdosta Daily Times Death Index, 1868-1987.

GENDEX, The Valdosta Daily Times Genealogical Index spanning from the 1860s to the 1980s has been digitized in full. This valuable genealogical resource is now online for the first time ever. You can search the Valdosta Daily Times Vital Records database and the Gendex database here. 

Valdosta State Yearbook Collection at the Internet Archive

We are please to announce that Valdosta State's historic yearbook collection, spanning from 1925-1987, has been completely digitize. Browse decades of life at Valdosta State at https://archive.org/details/valdostastate on the Internet Archive.  

Congratulations to the VSU Archives for winning the 2007 Brenda McCallum Prize from The American Folklore Society!

The American Folklore Society 
The Valdosta Daily Times article 
Valdosta State University News articles