Wisconsin's Area Research Centers

Abstract

State Historical Society of Wisconsin currently operates a system of eight area research centers for public archives and private manuscript collections of local or regional character. The Wisconsin system has served as a model for similar ventures in at least two other States; and many more States and archival agencies, including that of New South Wales, Australia, have inquired about its structure and operation. To understand the organization of the system and make a realistic appraisal of its present role and future potentialities, it is necessary to know something of the needs it was designed to meet and of the history of its own development within the larger framework of the State Historical Society and Wisconsin's system of public higher education. The legislative foundations of the State's modern archival program were laid in the years from 1947 to 195 1. The first and most important act, passed in 1947, designated the State Historical Society as the ultimate depository of the State's archives and created the Committee on Public Records to review State agencies' requests to dispose of obsolete records and to authorize their destruction or transfer to the Archives.1 The public records act of 1947 applied only to records of the State government, but in 1949 the legislature authorized officials of "any county, city, village, town, school district or other local governmental unit" to transfer to the historical society "such noncurrent records as in the state historical society's judgment are of permanent historical value and which are no longer needed for administrative purposes." The act also permitted county officers to transfer to the historical society tax rolls and original minutes and other papers connected with the proceedings of county boards of supervisors. If the historical society did not accept title to such records within 60 days, the county was allowed to destroy them after the expiration of retention periods specified in the law.2 The legislature extended and strengthened this act in 1951, when it added the originals of court records that had been microfilmed to