UNIL's archives and collections

An archive is a collection of documents produced or received by an administration, an individual, an organisation, etc. as part of its activities. Each fonds has a unique producer.

Funds are closed or open depending on whether or not the organisation has ceased its activity. UNIL's conserved funds are of three types.

Administrative funds

Directorates, colleges, faculties, etc. These are the most numerous because their transfer to the archives is required by law. They are governed by a classification plan and common conservation rules; they respond to administrative, legal and historical needs.

Research funds

Institute, centre, section, etc. They mainly comprise documents relating to the university's teaching and research missions and have their own conservation rules. Their purpose is exclusively historical. If the units request their deposit, it is accepted.

Private funds

Professors, associations, etc. the almost systematic presence of personal documents in these fonds leads to the signing of a donation agreement which specifies the transfer of ownership and governs the conditions of conservation and consultation. The purpose of these collections is exclusively historical. Given their number and volume, they are not subject to an institutional collecting policy.

Detailed inventories of our collections are available on request.

A collection is a set of documents, artificially brought together according to criteria of kinship, based on the nature of the documents or a common theme. They are not necessarily produced by a single person.

The Archives houses four collections.

Iconographic collection

From the silver photos commissioned from photographer De Jongh by the Rectorate in 1923 to the digital photos of the 21st century, static iconographic documents relating to the University have accumulated to several tens of thousands of images. Some of these belong to the University, while others come from external conservation centres (ATS, Lausanne Historical Museum, Elysée Museum, etc.). The iconographic collection also collects and describes the University posters collected on the Dorigny site from 2009 onwards, etc..

Audiovisual collection

Sound production has been developing at UNIL since the 1970s. Ten years later, moving images became popular. These documents, often produced on non-professional media, have been brought together in a single collection. Included are recordings of lectures, conferences, shows and institutional promotional films.

Collection of objects

Since its origins, the University has collected gifts, medals, busts, pinglettes; it has sometimes collected or purchased works of art. Since 1987, the company has been selling decorative products (pens, T-shirts, USB keys, etc.). All of the three-dimensional objects reçus or produced by UNIL have been reéuni;ed into a speci;c collection.

Documentary collection

Newspaper articles relating to UNIL have been collected over some fifty years by the Press Office. They were transferred to the archives when it was disbanded. Documentary files have been compiled as a result of research carried out in the archives. They have been inventoried and made available to researchers. Grey literature and books about UNIL complement the documentary collections kept in the archives.

In 2017, UNIRIS launched a project aimed at drawing up an inventory of university collections (whether scientific, artistic, administrative or other) at UNIL. A report on these collections has been produced.