The Nelis R. Kampenga University Archives and Area Research Center houses three separate but complementary collections:
In addition, the Archives also provides access to Digital Collections, the Historic Video Game Collection, and Special Collections.
Faculty, staff, students, and the public are encouraged to use the Archives. Most of the items in the Archives are accessible to all patrons without restrictions. However, archival materials do not circulate and must be used in the Archives’ reading room.
The University Archives consists of the non-current institutional records of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point that have continuing administrative, fiscal, legal, or historical value. It includes records for major campus administrative offices, departments, and student-related activities. To ensure the proper maintenance, protection, retention, and disposition of institutional records, the Archives administers UW-Stevens Point's records management program.
The Archives also collections manuscript collections related to UW-Stevens Point's history or local history. These consist of primary source materials that have long-term research and instructional value for UW-Stevens Point's academic programs. Examples of manuscript collections in the Archives include UW-Stevens Point faculty papers, research files compiled by local historians, and the records of businesses and other organizations.
The Archives stores, preserves, and provides access to a portion of the Portage County Historical Society's manuscript and photograph collections. Records in this collection were created or used in Portage County, have had a significant impact on Portage County history, and document Portage County history or Portage County's role in Wisconsin and United States history. The collection includes a variety of different formats and materials including manuscript collections, business records, photographs, newspapers, maps, and other artifacts.
The Stevens Point Area Research Center houses Wisconsin Historical Society collections created in Adams, Juneau, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Portage, Waupaca, Waushara, and Wood counties. The Area Research Center collection includes non-current local government records, oral histories, business records, and manuscript collections. This collection also includes materials useful for genealogical research such as tax rolls, naturalization records, census records, court records, and pre-1907 vital records.
Finding Aids provide researchers with important information about the contents, arrangement, and origin of materials in an archival collection. All finding aids created by Archives staff for University Records and Portage County Historical Society collections are available online and are fully text searchable.
Finding aids for Wisconsin Historical Society Area Research Center network collections housed at the UW-Stevens Point are available through University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.
Please contact Archives reference staff at archives@uwsp.edu with any questions about the use, structure, and availability of finding aids.
We welcome donations of records to the Archives' collections as long as the records fall within the Archives' collection scope. The University Archives Collection Development Policy provides a general overview of the types of records we collect. Please send us an email if you have records you are interested in donating. We would be happy to evaluate them to see if they are a good fit for our collections.