Washington State University's Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) was envisioned in 1949 and fully established in 1977. In 1955 the "Manuscripts-Archives Department" was formed on the first floor of the then recently built Holland Library at the recommendation of the Holland Library Committee. During the 1960s a "Humanities Special Collections" division was formed in Holland Library but it was not an integral part of the Manuscripts-Archives Department. When the new Science Library was built in 1977, and following the removal of the science collections from Holland Library into the Owen Science and Engineering Library, the Humanities Special Collections and Manuscripts-Archives divisions were merged into one physical and administrative unit. When the Holland addition (later named the Terrell Library) was built in 1994, MASC moved into new quarters on the ground floor of the new building.
Prior to the digital era, when materials from MASC's photographic collections needed reproduced, the originals had to be sent to WSU's Photo Services, where a negative was created from the print, and then a new print made. The print was provided to the requester, and the negative retained in a negative file, separate from the originals. While a large majority of the materials here are duplicates of MASC originals, a small number were created from non-MASC materials.
This collection of approximately 3200 images is maintained primarily as a reference tool for locating original images in cases where negative numbers have been used in citations or otherwise used as identifiers. Each negative is identified by a number of the formnat YY-CCCC, where YY is the final two digits of the year, and CCCC is a three or four digit number identifying the chronological order of the creation of the negative in that year. These numbers were frequently used as an identifier in publications. Additionally, a public "card catalog" of commonly used prints, created primarily from these negatives, remains in use in MASC and these numbers are frequently used on those cards.
The collection is arranged in chronological order.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item Description]
Washington State University MASC Negative Files, 1970-2002 (PC 149)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The MASC Negative Files were moved to archival storage by University Archivist and Photographs Curator Mark O'English on June 14, 2012 as UPC-1205.
This collection was processed in June-July 2012 by Mark O'English and Katrina Burch.
The Washington State University MASC Photo Card Files, 1970-2002
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.