Research at SCRC by the Numbers, 2024 Edition
by Amy McDonald, Reference & Access Services Librarian
We love all our collections here at the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), but sometimes it’s fun to look back at the previous year and see which ones were pop-u-u-lar (apologies to Wicked). We’re going to throw a few other interesting statistics in the mix, too, so that you can get an up-close view of the research work that went on in SCRC in 2024.
With great thanks to Calvin Silver G’26, one of our tremendous graduate student interns here in SCRC’s Public Services department, who compiled our usage statistics, here is a list of the top 10 archival collections used in 2024:
1. Syracuse University Photograph Collection (used 111 times)
2. Syracuse University Clipping Files (used 101 times)
3. Syracuse University Yearbook Collection (used 77 times)
4. Marcel Breuer Papers (used 57 times): check out the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive, too!
5. Grove Press Records (used 51 times)
6. Gerrit Smith Papers (used 50 times): here you’ll find digitized materials from our Gerrit Smith collections.
7. Margaret Bourke White Papers (used 42 times)
8. Ted Koppel Collection (used 39 times)
9. On Eagles’ Wings Collection (used 26 times): part of our Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives.
10. Syracuse University Commencement Reference Collection (used 24 times)
Clicking on the links will take you to each collection’s finding aid, where you can learn more about the materials found in the collection.
So many of our collections were used once or a few times—there truly is something for every interest here at SCRC! Out of 4,091 unique archival collections, 752 were used by researchers in 2024. Does that mean you need to visit SCRC to look through the other 3,339 collections this year? Yep! Contact us at scrc@syr.edu to ask questions about our collections or plan a Reading Room visit.
Speaking of Reading Room visits, our researchers made 1,275 visits to the Reading Room. Think of all the discovery that happened during those visits!
Finally, because we’re archivists and we keep track of everything, we used 632 pencils in the Reading Room. Did you know that we only use pencils in the Reading Room and when we’re working with archival/rare print materials in general?