Distinctive Collections (Dis Co), formerly Special Collections and Archives, started at Southwestern University in 1939, and has significantly grown since then, now home to over 20,000 volumes and over 1500 linear feet of archives. DISCO’s collections are available to not just the SU community, but the local community to sift through and use for reading and research. The collection items date all the way back to 2000 BC to the present year, 2026 and is home to several collection concentrations. Some of those include Clark Texana, which is Texas history, the University archives, which is SU’s history, and much more. There is a collection of local history, which is related to Georgetown and Williamson County.

Megan Firestone (she/her), head of Dis Co, and Grace Hunter ’29, Community Archiving Initiative Student Associate, kindly sat down for an interview with me to discuss the significance of community archiving, a special and relatively new addition to the archives.

She stated: “Our goal in Distinctive Collections is to be a resource for the community […] and we want everybody to feel welcome.” Anyone can reach out about their materials and see if their items are a good fit for the collection. There is great emphasis on the fact that “we are a space of exploration.”

As a whole, community archiving has been growing in archives over the last decade, and its goal is to work differently than a normal archive model. The ‘normal’ model typically involves a donor approaching the archive and presenting their material. If that material fits in the scope, it will be accepted. Community archiving’s difference is the archivists, like Megan, going out into communities and presenting the option of archiving and “saying we would like to work with you on preserving the history of your community!” This is an important part of the process, because it is active engagement—it is an intentional step in social justice to preserve stories and history. Dis Co, therefore, becomes a bridge builder.

Community archiving at Southwestern started with Megan about four years ago. She and Dis Co’s team wanted to lean into the mission of the university in its social justice aspect, trying to see how it can all fit together. “For here,” Megan stated, “our community archiving initiative spans a number of different topics and areas.” She continued on to discuss working with organizations like Preservation Georgetown, which is one of SU’s Community Partners. Further, they’ve worked with the local Latinx/Hispanic community ,the Chickasaw Community Council of Central Texas, and the LGBTQ+ collection. This may not always be asking for original copies of artifacts as to not take those important pieces from the respective communities. Megan shared that sometimes the communities will allow Dis Co to scan the originals and return them. “We very much want to approach this as we are not asking for ownership when we don’t feel ownership is ours to ask for.”

She used the example of the LGBTQ+ collection, open to all of Central Texas, to discuss how Dis Co lets the community members “formalize” the name and how they only really step in to help guide what kind of materials would be appropriate to include in their collection. At the end of it all, the goal of community archiving is to be a partner, not to dictate how the collection/archive should shape up.

When asked about her expectation of people visiting the archive or even bringing their own work, Megan kindly stated that the archive is still “kind of in infancy [and that] we’ve not promoted what materials are here yet.” Community archiving is still in a development stage at Dis Co.

This is where Grace’s student role comes into play as she serves as a liaison between community members and Dis Co and is a brand-new position funded through the Mellon Grant. Megan hopes to convert one of the normal student worker positions into what Grace is doing to act as the community archiving position moving forward. At the beginning of the semester, Grace studied various community archive practices to develop an outline of “how we can create sustainable partnerships to expand and strengthen the collections that we have.” She noted how working with Preservation Georgetown helped her learn all about the interconnectedness of the architecture of Georgetown and Southwestern.

As everything is still in beginner stages, Megan is still working on where to ‘categorize’ certain collections as some are still a “living” collection, such as Mesquite Creek Outfitters and The Palace Theater.

Dis Co is gradually growing in use as they pulled and re-shelved over a thousand items for different classes and tours last year. Over 800 students visited for various purposes, and about 59 classes visited to view and use the collections.

Megan and Grace highly encourage more students, faculty, staff, or anyone to dig into Dis Co’s materials. Their motto is simply “come in and explore!” You don’t need a special reason, and maybe you can make a change in your community with the research you find.