Mercer Archives Collection Development Policy

The Archives includes materials from all of Mercer’s schools and colleges as well as the Tift College collection acquired during the merger of the two schools. These include

• Course catalogs
• Yearbooks
• Student publications
• Programs from university events
• Programs and records from the Athletics Department
• Campus photographs
• Building plans and maps
• Reports of the President
• Board of Trustees minutes
• Mercer University Press books
• Ledgers from Penfield
• Audio-visual materials

Since the late 1800s, Mercer University has collected and preserved historical materials produced by and of interest to Georgia Baptists. The scope of the collection encompasses:

• Georgia Baptist Convention
• African-American Baptists
• Free Will Baptists
• Primitive Baptists

The department is the official depository for the state and national offices of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the national office of Baptist Women in Ministry.

Types of Baptist materials include:

• Church minutes and other records
• Published church histories
• Association minutes
• Published association histories
• Georgia Baptist Convention Annuals
• Southern Baptist Convention Annuals
• Newspapers and periodicals
• Microfilmed records of some of the above materials and of early manuscript records
• Georgia city/county/state histories that include write-ups of significant churches
• Personal papers of Georgia ministers

The Archives maintains a limited number of rare and fragile materials and a number of miscellaneous collections of gifts to the library. These include:

• The theology collection of Albert Henry Newman, noted Mercerian, which includes the library’s oldest books in a variety of languages
• A collection of textbooks used by students at Penfield
• First editions of the works of numerous British authors and poets (including Sir Walter Scott and C. S. Lewis)
• The writings of Vladimir Volkoff
• Significant Baptist publications
• Volumes older than 1865 from the general stacks
• Other fragile and oversized items