Searching and Requesting in Special Collections: Finding and Requesting Material in Special Collections

The catalog is the best place to find cataloged materials held by the UW Libraries. This includes both books and archival materials in Special Collections.

You’ll know if an item is held in Special Collections because you will see a purple “Special Collections Request” button next to the call number. In order to access the item, you'll simply have to click that button. Then you'll be directed to log in or create an account in the Special Collections Request System. 

After you've logged in or created your account, you'll see that the system has already filled out the request for you! From there, you can scroll down to schedule an appointment, submit the request, or save the item for later!

If you have all the information for a request, you can manually fill out the form yourself by going to the New Requests tab along the top menu. That will take you to a blank form. This is especially helpful if you're having a hard time getting a large finding aid to load!

Archives West is where Special Collections posts all of our finding aids! While you may find records for individual collections in the Library Catalog, the finding aids in Archives West will have more detailed inventories. 

When you search Archives West, you want to make sure that you've selected Univeristy of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. 

You'll know that something is in Special Collections because it will have a purple "request at UW" button in the "Overview of the Collection" section. In order to request items, you'll simply click on that button. Then you'll be directed to log in or create an account in the Special Collections Request System!

After you've logged in or created your account, you'll see a version of the finding aid with check boxes. You'll simply check the boxes for the items you wish to view. Note: You are limited to no more than 6 requests at a time. If you go over your limit, the system will not save the excess items.

Once you've selected the items you wish to view, you can scroll down to schedule an appointment, submit the request, or save the item for later!

Some of our older collections have inventories that are only available as a PDF. For these, you'll want to click on the link that says "View inventory/container list for this accession" to see the detailed inventory. 

After you've identified which materials you want to see in the PDF inventory, you will enter that information in the Special Requests/Questions box. Then, you can scroll down to schedule an appointment, submit the request, or save the item for later!