The List of Holdings is currently being adapted for the web and should be available in early 2002. A general description of the holdings follows.
The University Archives holds records of current and former administrative and academic units of the University, as well as some personal papers of former staff. They are in various formats, including photographs and audio-visual records. These records have been transferred to the Archives from University Records, the Noel Butlin Archives Centre and from other areas of the University and former staff.
The holdings date from 1930, the first year of teaching of the Canberra University College. The majority of the individual collections are of administrative records, for example committee records and surviving files documenting the early planning for ANU in the 1940s. However, there are some items of purely historic interest such as the Degree Register (on parchment) which has the signatures of eminent Australians who were awarded honorary degrees in the 1950s and 1960s. There are also photographs of many ANU places and people and audio-visual records of ceremonial occasions. Some of the personal papers have an official character which help illustrate the administrative relationship between schools and departments and the Chancelry. Other personal papers are essentially research material accumulated by ANU academics, retained because they document the research process. Likewise there are some collections which document teaching activities.