Mission

Mission

The OSCAlums Digital Archive is a community archive that works to collect, preserve, and provide free access to the recorded history of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA), a student-run, non-profit corporation that feeds and houses Oberlin College students in cooperative housing and dining spaces. The Digital Archive serves to build a strong network of current OSCA alumni; to be a resource to current OSCA members, to the broader public, and to other cooperative movements around the world; and to strengthen OSCA’s long-term sustainability. 

What We Collect

To that end, the Digital Archive seeks to collect materials created by the OSCAlums organization, as well as materials either created or collected by former members of OSCA from their time as a co-op member. OSCAlums materials include photographs, marketing materials, meeting minutes, and other organizational documents produced in the course of the alumni association’s operations. 

For materials related to the history of OSCA, the Digital Archive seeks materials such as photographs, videos, audio recordings, and printed and handwritten documents, all in either digitized and born-digital formats. The Digital Archive is unable to accept physical items, but can advise on best practices for digitizing relevant materials. Furthermore, the Digital Archive will only accept materials that have a connection to OSCA–other materials that relate strictly to Oberlin College should be donated to the Oberlin College Archives. Lastly, current members of OSCA are encouraged to give their materials to the OSCA Library in consultation with relevant OSCA staff.