The Drexel University Archives is committed to increasing the number of historical materials available online. Currently, most of our materials are not accessible online, and we encourage you to contact us directly if you do not find what you are looking for. We might have something that is already digitized but not online, or something that is not yet digitized but which we can digitize for you. 

We have several different kinds of digital, online materials available:

• Finding Aids: Finding aids are guides to help researchers understand the contents and organization of a collection. See below for more information about how to use our finding aids.
• Digitized Archival Material: Paper documents and photographic prints from the University Archives have been scanned and uploaded to the Drexel University Archival Collections platform, including information about the materials and the collection they are from.
• Theses and Dissertations: The University Archives provides online access to graduate theses and dissertations submitted as part of Drexel’s graduation requirements via the Drexel Research Discovery portal.
• Drexel Websites: View previous versions of department pages, student group websites, The Triangle, Drexel’s student newspaper, and other sites that represent the University’s online activities going back to 2009. You can find the Drexel websites we save through our own Archive-It collection, or through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
• Online Exhibits: Explore Drexel’s digitized archival material in interpretive online displays. Currently, the Drexel Archives offers two online exhibits: the Drexel Family Digital Archive, which explores the history, influence and legacy of the Drexel family; and Pandemic Stories: Voices of COVID-19, which explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through oral history interviews and self-interviews conducted by Drexel University students in the summer of 2020.

Searching Drexel University's Archival Collections 

There are several ways to access the University’s digitized archival materials. First, browse digitized collections directly through the Drexel University Archival Collections portal. Here you can view collections from the Drexel University Archives and the Legacy Center at the College of Medicine. Click on a collection to view its contents and click on an item to view that item. Once the item record is open, clicking on the “digital version” under “view online” will open the item in a new browser window where you can zoom in to view high-res images in detail.

You can also find digitized archival materials by searching in the Libraries’ main catalog, DragonSearch. Search results will include archival materials, or you can narrow your search results down to only digitized archival collections by selecting “archival materials” from the “material type” menu on the left. 

Searching Drexel University's Research & Scholarly Outputs

Using Finding Aids

Searching our finding aids database is a great place to start your research at the University Archives. Please note that this database contains finding aids for three different archives that are part of Drexel University: The Academy of Natural Sciences Archives, The Legacy Center at the College of Medicine, and the Drexel University Archives. Searching our findings aids for the name of a person or group, a department or academic program, or using a subject or keyword will show you every time that keyword appears in our collection guides.

We only have publicly viewable finding aids for about a third of our collections. Finding aids may not list the person or the topic you are interested in by name, but they may include information relevant to your research. We may also be able to give you access to relevant materials in collections that do not yet have completed finding aids.

If you didn’t find anything through searching our finding aid database, we encourage you to contact us with research questions since we are familiar with the collections and with Drexel’s history and may have ideas about what collection might have something useful to you.