Geisha, from Benjamin Smith Lyman Papers The Department of Special Collections and University Archives collects, preserves, and makes available a wide range of primary materials of enduring historical and cultural value. These collections, including manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings, and archival records, are open for research to anyone with a demonstrated need.

Du Bois Central Among the noteworthy collections in SCUA are the papers of W.E.B. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond (African-American intellectuals), Silvio E. Conte (Congressman), Benjamin Smith Lyman, William Smith Clark, and William Penn Brooks (natural scientists), Sidney Topol (telecommunications pioneer), Jozef Obrebski (ethnographer), William Lederer, Charles Whipple, Leonard Lewin, and William Swatos (writers), and the papers of a number of individuals and organizations dedicated to promoting positive social change, including Carl Oglesby, Mary Wentworth, Randy Kehler, and the Liberation News Service.

The focal points for SCUA's collections include:

• Social change and movements for social change
  • Environmental history and environmentalism
  • Gay rights
  • Intentional communities
  • Peace
  • Political and social activism
  • Prison reform
  • Social justice
• African-American history and culture
  • Antiracism and social justice
• Labor, work, and industry
  • Economic development and industrialization
  • Industries, manufacturing, and business in New England
  • Organized labor
• Agriculture, horticulture, and the natural sciences
  • Botany
  • Landscape design
  • Organic farming
  • Sustainable living
• Regional and local history
  • History of New England, with an emphasis on Western Massachusetts
  • Immigration to Massachusetts
  • Quabbin-related collections
• Literary and cultural history of New England
  • Journalism
  • Literature
  • Performaing arts
  • Poetry