American Heritage Center
University of Wyoming

Departments and Collections

The American Heritage Center is composed of five different departments, including Administration and Development, Arrangement and Description, the Toppan Rare Books Library, Reference Services and the University of Wyoming Archives.   The AHC also houses the Wyoming Cooperative Scanning Project.

Please choose from the following functions performed by the departments, or continue browsing the page.

• Anaconda Collection
• Cataloging
• Development
• Processing
• University of Wyoming Archives or records transfer
• Research questions
• Rare books
• The Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership
• Wyoming Cooperative Scanning Project

 Administration and Development

The American Heritage Center operates with a combination of public and private funding. Supporting the mission of the American Heritage Center to collect and preserve original documents and works is an expensive and difficult task. The AHC is partially supported through the generosity of the American Heritage Center Associates and other benefactors.

Arrangement and Description

This department performs a wide variety of archival tasks, including gaining initial intellectual and physical control over the collections when they first arrive at the American Heritage Center, arranging and describing the collections according to national archival standards. The collections are also cataloged into the University's online catalog to provide greater access.

For more information, contact D.C. Thompson at: dcthom@uwyo.edu

Reference Services

The Owen Wister Western Writers Reading Room is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday (7:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. during the summer) and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Contact the Reference Department with your interests and area of study and they can help locate the information you are seeking.  The AHC's collections are also available in the online catalog.  Charges for any services may be found through the University of Wyoming Fee Book.

Reference services also manages the Anaconda Collection, the product of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's exploration and development throughout the world.  It is the largest and most significant publicly-available collection of economic geological data and contains more than 1.8 million documents use in exploration, development and environmental studies.

For more information, contact the Reference Department at: ahcref@uwyo.edu or use the Research Request Form or the Anaconda Database Search Request Form.

Toppan Library

The Toppan Library is home to the University of Wyoming's rare books collection, consisting of 30,000 items. The majority of the materials are books, although there are newspapers, magazines, broadsides, illuminated manuscripts, incunabula, and other materials. Currently 4,000 items are available through the online catalog and over 10,000 items are available through a traditional card catalog search. Collecting subjects include the American West, British and American Literature, Early Exploration, Religion, Hunting and Fishing, and examples of the book arts.

For more information, contact Anne Marie Lane at: amlane@uwyo.edu

University of Wyoming Archives

The University of Wyoming Archives provides records management services for the University and is the repository for the permanent records of University departments, colleges, student organizations and the papers of faculty members.

For more information, contact Mark Shelstad at: shelstad@uwyo.edu

Wyoming Cooperative Scanning Project

The project offers large and small format scanning to the general public.

American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, P.O. Box 3924, Laramie, WY 82071.  Phone:  307.766.4114,  Fax:  307.766.5511, E-mail: shelstad@uwyo.edu.  Copyright © University of Wyoming, 1999-2001.  Created on May 27, 1999.  Last modified on November 06, 2003.