Frequently Asked Questions

The Inclusive History and Images Project (IHIP) is an important component of LMU’s ongoing university-wide anti-racism initiative. It seeks to address important gaps in understanding our own institutional history by gathering stories and images from students, alumni, faculty, staff and the greater LMU community to tell the full and inclusive LMU story. For more information and to view the collections, please visit the IHIP homepage.

To contribute your LMU-related materials to the University Archives for the IHIP initiative, please submit the following:

1. Intake Form. This form provides important information about you and your item(s). Please provide basic information, and if your item(s) are selected as a part of the project, the University Archivist will follow up to obtain more details.
2. Permissions Agreement. This agreement is part of the Intake Form, where the LMU Library asks you to acknowledge and agree to permissions allowing us to use your items. Please read the Permissions Agreement carefully and reach out to Liz Zepeda (she/her), University Archivist, at [email protected] or (310) 338-4301 if you have any questions or are interested in donating physical items. The donation of physical items will be adifferent process.
3. Your item(s). Please consider submitting a wide variety of LMU-related itemsto the University Archives to support research on LMU’s history, such as: photographs, video, letters and correspondence, newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, fliers, websites, blogs, social media content, and press releases. A more comprehensive list of items is available in the Intake Form.
   • If you have digital files, please attach them to the Intake Form.
   • If you have physical items that you would like to digitize, please set up an appointment with the University Archives. LMU Library staff are available toscan items by appointment, or to provide guidance on scanning items using your own equipment.
   • If you would like to donate physical items to the LMU Archives and Special Collections, please contact Liz Zepeda (she/her), University Archivist, at [email protected] or (310)338-4301.

• Architectural records
• Articles of incorporation, charters
• Audio recordings
• Budgets
• Bylaws and revisions
• Clippings
• Constitution and revisions
• Correspondence/email of officers
• Data sets
• Directories
• Financial statements
• Handbooks
• Memoranda
• Minutes of meetings
• Membership lists
• Newsletters and other publications (generated by the organization)
• Organizational charts
• Pamphlets, brochures, fliers, etc.
• Photographs
• Planning documents
• Press releases
• Reports (annual, committee, etc.)
• Rosters
• Scrapbooks
• Speeches
• Subject files
• Websites/blogs/social media content
• Zines

If you have any questions about items that are not in this list, please contact Liz Zepeda (she/her), University Archivist, at [email protected] or (310) 338-4301.

The IHIP Committee will seriously consider every donated item, doing its best to find ways to include them (as appropriate) in the University Archives. Unfortunately, we cannot promise that your item(s) will be included in the IHIP Collection and/or larger University Archives, given our project staffing and resources. With your help describing your items, the University Archivist will select contributed items that add new knowledge to the University Archives and tell a more complete LMU story. The IHIP Committee may prioritize adding items to its digital collection that include some or all of the following characteristics:

• Portraying LMU students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members
• Depicting day-to-day university life as well as important events.
• Representing under-engaged LMU communities, including: Black, Latino/a and Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and persons with disabilities.

The University Archivist will gladly accept a digital copy of your item(s). This FAQ contains additional information on digitizing your item(s), either on your own or through the LMU Library. We will also ask you to fill out the Intake Form once you’re ready to donate the digital copies of your items to Archives and Special Collections.

Yes! We recommend that the images meet the following specifications:

• Resolution: minimum 300 ppi (mobile phones typically take 300 ppi photos)
• Format: TIFF, JPEG, JP2000, PNG, WAV, MP3, MP4
• Size: generally 1MB-20MB (smaller and larger files are also accepted)

Yes, please contact Liz Zepeda (she/her), University Archivist, at [email protected] or (310)338-4301 to make an appointment for your visit to the Department of Archives and Special Collections.

Please do not just drop off a collection at LMU without first consulting with Liz Zepeda (she/her), University Archivist, at [email protected] or (310)338-4301.

It is a record of memories of past events, done through an interviewer and interviewee in this case, related to your time at LMU. The IHIP Intake Form includes an invitation to participate in an oral interview. If you would like to do an oral interview or would like to recommend someone for an interview, please contact us at [email protected].  A member of the IHIP Team will coordinate with the interviewee to secure a date and location (if in-person) of the interview. The interviewer will have a set of questions that will help spark memories of your time at LMU and that focus on the inclusive history of LMU.

The Department of Archives and Special Collections reserves the right to return or discard duplicates of materials during the processing of materials or to restrict any materials for which it is legally required to do so. The Department also reserves the right to de-accession materials once in its possession. The donor will have the right of first refusal, once the decision has been made. If the donor refuses to accept the materials, then they will be de-accessioned according to Standards for Ethical Conduct for Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Librarians, with Guidelines for Institutional Practice in Support of the Standards, 2d edition, 1992. Legal issues such as ownership and restrictions, the donor’s original desire for the collection, and possible transfer to another institution will all be considered.

Archives and Special Collections is committed to presenting LMU’s inclusive history through the voices of IHIP participants. All Special Collections holdings are accessible to any researcher who has a legitimate reason to use them. This may include use of IHIP materials in publications. All researchers are required to complete a registration form and show identification before being allowed to use any of these materials in our supervised reading room. Digital holdings are made openly available to users worldwide, unless legal stipulations dictate restrictions. A copy of our Rules for Researchers is available online.

Once they are processed, you may have access to the materials on the same terms as any other researcher. Physical collection materials are available to researchers in the Archives and Special Collections reading room in the LMU Library. Because they are irreplaceable, such materials do not circulate, but must be used under the supervision of the library staff.