American Academy in Rome

Developing a long lasting archives program that spans two continents

The American Academy in Rome faced several challenges in developing its Archives program, one of which was that both the New York Office and the Academy facilities in Rome had retained records. Few of these had been reviewed or organized. Also in the early 1960’s a selection of records had been donated to a reference repository. AAR adopted our evaluation and recommendations report setting in motion the establishment of a NY Office-based Archive for records needed for on-going operations with provision for future repository transfers.

Since 1992 Winthrop has processed and cataloged all governance, Fellowship, and Residency-related archival records and has digitized and captured metadata for AAR’s extensive photograph and 35 mm slide collection. This work has continued without interruption utilizing the services of a Winthrop archivist on a 1-day per week basis. The Archivist also is responsible for responding to archival reference and research requests that originate both internally and externally.