(gentle music) - I'm always really drawn to the oldest one.

I just like to see how things were written in the time.

So as an archivist, it's really meaningful for me to preserve the history of this region.

What we have here is unique.

Nobody else has it.

Our materials here represent the culture and the people of this area.

My name is Trista Raezer-Stursa, and I am the University Archivist here at MSUM.

We are currently in the MSUM Archives, which is comprised of two archives actually.

We have the university archives, and then we also have the Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, which is archival material pertaining to the northwestern region of Minnesota.

So as a archivist, my responsibility is for the archives here, acquisitions, getting in new historical materials, providing access to these materials to researchers who come in, such as students, local community members, genealogists, scholars.

New materials that come in need to be organized.

And we also do outreach to let people know that we're an archive here, and we'd like people to come in to look at materials and use them in their research.

The archives here was founded in 1972.

The Minnesota Historical Society down in St.

Paul, they wanted people in the state to have easier access to materials that pertained to their local history.

So they started what they would call Regional Historical Centers across the state.

So the Northwest one was established here at MSUM, so they transferred some locally relevant collections to us, and it's grown since then.

(bright music) I would say that these materials, most of it is what we call ephemera.

So ephemera is materials that people don't typically save.

It's comprised of newspapers, photographs, postcards, maps, brochures, flyers.

Everything in this collection was most likely donated by an individual.

They find out we're here, they know about us, and brought it over.

So it's usually just a bunch of individuals collecting the thing, historic things, and wanting to make sure that these items get preserved, and that people in the future down the road can see them.

So right here is the oldest newspaper that we have in this collection.

June 4, 1885, The Evening News.

It's kinda funny, because there isn't really any hard-hitting articles in it.

It's actually about half of it is actually ads, and then it's kind of little short sentences of things happening.

And then there's a few items of like, this is what's going on in Georgetown, or Kragnes, or these areas.

Back in the day, there'd often be like kind of local town gossip would show up in newspapers.

Headline that said, "Mrs.

Leckwold possibly insane.

Physicians say woman's distorted mind is not uncommon condition."

And it kind of gives you a little snapshot of what thinking was like in the past that, we wouldn't think that way today.

When it comes to newspapers, in the past, it used to be much bigger, physically.

And I noticed, even in my lifetime, probably to save costs for money, they've gotten kind of like thinner and smaller.

Now, currently most newspapers are really online, which it's gonna be hard for people in the future.

We have to hope that those newspaper companies are preserving their online presence, and saving those digital records.

Technology has really been great for archives, because we've been able to digitize a lot of materials and make them available online so that people around the world can see these materials.

It's really exciting to know that someone on the other side of the globe could be reading a student's paper from MSUM.

So a really fun thing about being an archivist is seeing the new materials that come in.

There are times when we get something, and it's just like, wow, this is so cool.

So for example, during World War II, there was Air Corps training done here on campus.

So men came in to do training before they went off to war.

So we've gotten some donations from family members of those men.

Once got a scrapbook put together by a student here in the 1920s.

When you see photos of people from the '20s, they're usually fairly formal.

But I was going through it and there's these really fun, candid photos of this girl and her friends.

They were making silly faces, they were having a pajama party, just really candid.

Photos you usually don't see.

So it was really fun because it made it feel more real.

Like this is a college student who's just having, who's having a fun time here on campus while they're also studying.

Seeing those really, getting those older materials from students from the past is a lot of fun.

The archives is a place where you can go to really see like, okay, here is a photograph of this town.

This is what it looked like.

Here's a newspaper.

This is what happened that day.

Our history is a part of our culture.

It what makes this community what it is today.

And it's good to know what happened in the past, or someone might be curious about a specific thing.

Like, what's the history of my home?

What was going on when it was built?

How has this area grown and developed?

Who were the prominent people who lived here 100 years ago?

(bright music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie Public.