CSU’s Water Resources Archive: Preserving, Providing and Promoting
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
The Water Resources Archive at the Colorado State University Libraries is now completing its sixth year. Starting from scratch, the Archive has grown to hold 45 collections in nearly 1,000 boxes. Two of those collections are from ditch companies, two document irrigation companies, and one is the official collection of DARCA’s own records. This is a great start, but there is still a long way to go.
The Water Resources Archive’s mission is to “provide access to, promote and preserve the water heritage of Colorado.” This means documenting the state’s water in all of its aspects, including as it relates to engineering, the environment, law, recreation, and more. Being some of the oldest water-related organizations in the state, ditch, reservoir, and irrigation companies are some of the most important to be documented.
Organizations are typically documented by the records they create, whether reports, meeting minutes, correspondence, personnel files, maps, photographs, videos, or other formats. For ditch and reservoir companies, it is usually meeting minutes and water use data that give the best sense of activities and accomplishments. These are just some of the materials that should be saved by the companies, or should be considered for donation to an archive.
The CSU Water Resources Archive will be holding a workshop in November specifically for ditch companies to learn about records management and archives. For a description of the workshop. Be sure to sign up if in need of assistance in managing your company’s files. Also see the chapter on records in DARCA’s ditch company handbook as well as the Archive’s brochure on donating materials. To see brochure.
For more information about records management and archives, visit the Water Resources Archive website, http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/water/, or contact Patty Rettig, head archivist for the Water Resources Archive (970-491-1939;
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