Reuther Library Access Update

The Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs continues to serve your needs as researchers with a focus on safety considerations to keep our staff, researchers, and communities healthy. We are pleased to share our current plan for research operations. Though we are not yet offering walk-in visits at this time, we have developed a plan for limited safe access. Please watch this space and our social media accounts for access updates over the coming months.

Current plans are based on best practices and guidelines laid out by the State of Michigan, the archival profession, and Wayne State University. We expect that they will evolve over the summer.

As you embark on your research, we ask that you take the following steps:

1. Search our collections at https://reuther.wayne.edu/search/node or http://archives.wayne.edu
2. Once you have a sense of the material you’d like to use for research, contact us by email at reutherreference@wayne.edu or use Ask an Archivist. An archivist will be happy to discuss ways to meet your research needs. We will handle as many of your requests as possible remotely. Due to request volume, we may limit the number of folders we are able to provide remotely.
3. An archivist may determine that your research needs require an in-person visit to our Reading Room. Reading Room access is currently available to WSU students, faculty, and staff. Learn more about how to prepare for an appointment.

   We are deeply committed to serving our community beyond Wayne State. We will work with you to meet your needs as best we can remotely for now. As soon as it is safe to do so, we hope to welcome you in person again.

4. If you are part of a donor organization with materials at the Reuther and need access, please contact us directly to discuss possibilities.

Please do not travel to the library if you have not received an appointment confirmation email from us.

Though we will do our best to meet your research needs, not all services are available at this time. For now, we offer: Remote reference support, limited scanning, virtual instruction, in-person appointments with 2 business days' notice and consultation.

We are not currently able to offer: Drop-in appointments, same-day box pull requests, and in-person film viewing.

Please work with Reuther archivists to plan your duplication requests. Due to staffing and building access restrictions, our ability to fill extensive remote scanning and reference requests is limited.

During this period, remote audiovisual reference services are also limited. When initiating an AV request, please include specific information such as date(s), location, individual or organization, event, etc. We regret that we are unable to perform extensive and/or general subject searches of unprocessed AV collections at this time.

Visit our FAQ page for more details.