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For a long time, archives and special collections libraries attached to universities were not welcoming places for students. All that changed in the last thirty or so years, as archives began opening their reading rooms to classes in response to pedagogical trends moving toward hands-on, constructivist approaches to learning.

The Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center houses the University’s Special Collections and University Archives department on the third floor of the building, including a purpose-built and very attractive reading room for onsite researchers. It serves its intended purpose well, but functions much less effectively as a space for class visits to the archives. It is long and narrow, furniture is heavy and difficult to reposition, and can only comfortably seat about twenty. We have used it as a classroom for the past sixteen years nonetheless, knowing that it is often uncomfortable and that class visits require us to turn away other users. In spite of this, between fall 2022 and spring 2024, we have hosted 47 classes and more than 700 students.

Thanks to the generous support of the Greg Nelson-Warren Nelson Family Trust, administered by former Â鶹ӳ»­ ASUN President Frankie Sue Del Papa, the University’s Special Collections and University Archives department took a massive step forward in our abilities to support campus curriculum. The Smallwood Foundation room in the Knowledge Center has been refurbished and refitted as a classroom primarily for Special Collections use, named The Vault Studio classroom. It is a lovely, brightly-lit space with seating for 36, easily-moved and adjusted tables, and a high-end ceiling-mounted document camera to share items ranging from individual 35mm slides all the way up to meter-wide maps with the entire class.

A late summer event with campus dignitaries and friends of University Libraries and Special Collections officially opened the classroom in advance of the start of the fall 2024 semester. The room was put to use immediately with its very first class, a group of Davidson Academy high school students taking part in Edward Schoolman’s summer survey history class. They enthusiastically examined cuneiform tablets, a 15th-century copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle, 19th century fashion plates, Soviet propaganda posters and more.

Coming as it does at the same time as the University’s sesquicentennial celebrations and a aimed specifically at instructors, the Vault Studio sets us on a course to incorporate the archives into the curriculum into innovative, exciting new ways. We can offer more lesson formats, attract new disciplines (and tempt our lapsed users back to us), and make the archives a truly dynamic part of the student experience. As the primary instructor for Special Collections, I can say with complete earnestness that The Vault Studio classroom is a game-changer and I can hardly wait to see where it will take us.

Questions about instruction or the Vault Studio? Contact Elspeth Olson, Outreach and Public Services Archivist or submit an .