Special Collections Guide for Student Classes

What's in the Collection?

The OWU Historical Collection's purpose is to facilitate research related to the history of the university by acquiring, preserving, and providing supervised access to historically significant materials related to OWU constituents. The historical collection serves the three main user groups described in the OWU Libraries Collection Development Policy: the OWU community; the Delaware, Ohio community; and external researchers. 

The collection includes: 

• Artifacts including scrapbooks, portraits, and mementos

• Building Files containing photographs of and articles about structures currently in use on campus, as well as ones that have been demolished or are no longer owned by the university

• Faculty and Alumni Publications

• People Files focused on OWU presidents, faculty, staff, and select alumni

• Student Departmental Honors Papers

• Subject Files covering clubs and organizations, special events, and sports 

• University Publications including yearbooks, alumni magazines, student newspapers, catalogs, and directories 

What isn't in the Collection 

The OWU Historical Collection is not the department of record for official university documents. 

Additional Resources on OWU History

Books

Digital Collections

• Our Shared History: Delaware, Methodism, and Ohio Wesleyan University -- A digital collection created by staff of OWU Special Collections Department. Click link, or type in the name of the collection above in Google, or enter from OWU Libraries website [About the Libraries – Digital Collections – Archival Collections] 
   
• OWU Student Newspapers -- Full-text access to issues of the Western Collegian, Practical Student, Ohio Wesleyan Transcript, and The Transcript from 1867 to 2006. Click link or enter from OWU Libraries website [About the Libraries – Digital Collections] 
  • For additional help using OWU Student Newspapers online, see below.
  • For articles after 2006, use the Transcript website.
     
• OWU Magazine and Alumni Quarterly Index -- An index to the OWU Magazine from 1917-2009. OWU account credentials required.

Accessing the OWU Newspaper Digital Collection

OWU shares an digital collection hub with our partner schools in the Five Colleges of Ohio, and it includes student newspapers.
 

Browsing the Collection

On the OWU collection page, sort by Date Ascending to view the oldest issues first. Note that OWU's student paper went through several name changes before it was titled The Transcript.

Searching

(1) To search within the collection, click the Advanced Search link underneath the keyword search box. (2) Uncheck Select all collections. (3) Check Student Newspapers at the Five Colleges of Ohio-OH5. (4) Click the Save button. You must click Save before you can enter more search criteria.
(5) In the Enter Search Term section: Select Source from the first dropdown menu. (6) Enter "wesleyan" as a search word. This ensures you are searching OWU newspapers. (7) To enter more search terms, click the Add Row button in the bottom right of the section to add another search string.
(8) To add a date or date range to your search, go to the Enter Date section and select your date or dates. (9) Once you enter all your search criteria, click the blue Search button at the bottom right of the page.

Viewing

To view a newspaper issue, click on the thumbnail of the issue in your search results. On the record page for the issue you can:

Browse the issue, by clicking through page by page;   Expand the issue to full screen;   Keyword search within the issue, the Search this record field on the right side of the page;   Download a jpeg of the page in view with the download button on the right;   Print the current page or the whole issue, the print button on the upper right;
Scroll down the page to see a transcription of text on the page in view.