College Archives

Mission

The mission of Central Oregon Community College (COCC) Archives is to collect, care for, and make available materials that document the history and development of Central Oregon Community College since its foundation, and, in particular, to provide documentation of its teaching and learning functions; the activities of its diverse student body; its role in the state of Oregon and the community at large; and its place in American higher education and workforce development.

Collection scope

Historical items in the form of papers, photographs, audio-visuals, electronic files, and related items will be collected. The COCC Archives is for historical materials only. Any records that are subject to a Records Retention Schedule will be held by the responsible office or department and no materials with sensitive or confidential information will be accepted. Besides meeting the Archives mission, collection items are unique (versus mass produced or duplicated in other COCC or peer organization collections) or valuable for research purposes in nature. Archival materials are records no longer needed every day, and they are deemed to be of permanent historical value.

Appraisal of new materials

Appraisal is the process to determine whether newly offered historical materials are appropriate to include in the Archives collection based on the above collecting mission and scope. In addition, if historical materials appear to fit within the collecting mission, then an additional review will be conducted to determine the physical state of the collection. If a potential donation is found unsuitable to the Archives collecting mission, items will be returned to the owner.

Some of the appraisal considerations for donated materials will include the following criteria:

items meet the requirements of the current COCC Collecting Mission of the Archives
materials and their users are best served by placing them under the COCC Archives care (versus different repositories)
materials, such as original manuscripts or papers, are historically valuable and a unique addition to the Collection
materials have a high potential research value
the physical integrity or items has not been compromised by evidence of mold, insects, or other physical threats
COCC has the resources (e.g., staffing support, physical capacity, digitization resources, etc.) to support the new additions

Note: COCC does not provide monetary appraisal for donated historical items and cannot provide appraiser recommendations. It is the donor’s responsibility to have an appraisal completed by a certified appraiser, if they so wish.

Accession

Accession is the act of accepting new material into the collection along with related physical, legal, and intellectual control. For COCC created materials, the Archives will require the completion of a Departmental Transfer Form by the offering party to help with efficient processing and also serve as a record of the materials leaving that department and coming to the Archives. For potential items coming from a donor external to COCC, a Deed of Gift will be required to transfer ownership and copyright (if applicable) to COCC.

Deaccession

Deaccession is the process of permanent removal of existing holdings for the better health and management of the collection.

Deaccessioning is a natural part of managing healthy collections and it can happen for several reasons such as:

Items are outside COCC’s current collecting mission.
The collection has preservation issues that are either inherent to the collection or have accidently damaged the collection, such as pests, water damage, fire, or other physical causes.
The materials and potential researchers will be better served by placing the material in a different repository.
There are multiple duplicates of the same, identical material.

Disposing of materials may involve the permanent destruction, transfer to other repositories, or return of historical materials to the original owner.