Visiting Researchers

So that we don’t waste any time once you arrive, please contact us at least 24 hours ahead of your planned visit to discuss your resource needs.   Since most of our holdings are in closed stacks, we need to identify and gather material for you.  If you cannot contact us ahead of your visit, you are certainly still welcome to come but be aware that staff may not be available to pull materials for you right away.  Please contact us at:

The Stark Center is located in the North End Zone building of the Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (the football stadium).  Our street address is 403 DeLoss Dodds Way.  (Click here for a map) Enter the North End Zone building through the doors marked Gate 16 and turn immediately left to enter the elevator lobby.  Take the elevator to the 5^th level and you’ll exit into our lobby.

The Stark Center is open Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm.  We are closed on weekends and most federal holidays.  On rare occasions, we may close for a special/private event.  Please check our web site or call us to verify that we will be open.

There are several hotels and motels in the area.  You can download Hotels near the Stark Center which has a map and contact information for places close to us.

Parking on campus is very restricted.  There are a few metered parking spots on Dean Keeton Blvd., and in front of Bellmont Hall.  However, we strongly encourage people to use one of the public parking garages near us.  There is a fee to park in either one.  For additional parking information, visit https://parking.utexas.edu/parking/ut-parking-garages.

Some of our material is standard library material and may be used in the reading room.   The reading room is a public space; it is not a designated “quiet zone”.  Beverages in a sealed container may be brought into the reading room but no food is allowed.  You may bring your backpacks, purses, etc. into this room.

Some of our holdings are rare and fragile items; if your research requires using these materials, we may ask you to use them in our reserved “research room”.   You may not take food or beverage into this room, nor may you take backpacks, purses, or cases of any sort.  We have a staffed locker area for you to store your belongings.

We encourage you to bring a laptop computer with you.  The Stark Center does NOT have any computers available for public use.  We also do not have a public printer.  UT’s main library has these services if needed.

Wi-Fi connection.  The University of Texas offers a free guest account, choose “utguest” in your Wi-Fi connection menu.

We do not have a public copier or scanner.  We strongly encourage you to bring a personal camera (or your phone) with you to copy  – for personal use only – any items of interest.   If you decide to publish or display any Stark Center image, please read the Permission to Publish or Display section below.

We reserve the right to not copy or scan any item if doing so would cause it damage.

If you are carrying a concealed handgun, you must carry it on your person or have it be within reach at all times.  Please refer to the UT policy on concealed carry at https://www.policies.utexas.edu/policies/campus-concealed-carry, and the UT Campus Carry website, https://campuscarry.utexas.edu/.

If this is the first time you’ve conducted “archive research”, then you may find this online guide from the Society of American Archivists a useful overview of the process.  https://www2.archivists.org/usingarchives

Our collections range from current paperback textbooks to 1500 lb. barbells – consequently, we do not have a single index to everything in the collection.  To discover what we do have, please use the following tools:

About our Collections – this section of our web site provides a general overview of the strengths of our collection and includes brief descriptions of our featured collections.

Finding Aids – archive collections of individuals’ papers, manuscripts, photographs, etc, may be searched through the finding aid for that collection.  These finding aids have been created by the archivists (or archivist-students) who processed the collection.

Digital Material – as funding becomes available, we are digitizing appropriate items in collections.  This page will describe and provide access to what we have digitized so far.

UT Libraries Catalog – our book material has received standard library cataloging and is accessible through searching the UT Libraries catalog. Once you’ve searched your keyword (or author name), you can narrow the search to Stark Center holdings by clicking on the “All Locations” drop down menu.

Reference Questions – if you’re not sure where to start, please feel free to send us an email,  Include as much information as you can about your research request; we’ll get back to you with recommendations of collections or items in our collection that will help you start.

Once you have identified material relevant to your search, staff members will pull the items and bring them to the Reading Room (or Research Room) for you.

To support the continued preservation of our collections, the Stark Center assesses a fee for items you wish to either publish or display in an exhibit (virtual or real).   We offer high quality scans of items from our holdings.  Please review our Duplication Policy and contact us with any questions.

We reserve the right to refuse to duplicate any material which may be harmed by the duplication process OR any material that would cause us to violate copyright standards (see below).

If you are a professor or a student needing images for a classroom presentation or lecture, fees may be waived – please contact us.

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) includes certain conditions under which educational institutions are allowed to provide reproductions of materials.   One such condition of “fair use” is that the copy is used only for “private study, scholarship or research”.   Any reproduction we supply is subject to this restriction.  You are responsible for determining any other potential copyright restriction on your intended use.  The Stark Center reserves the right to refuse to copy material if, in our judgment, doing so would violate copyright law.

Commercial use of any the images on our web site is prohibited without prior permission from and payment of fees to the Stark Center.

When known, we identify rights holders for images used on our web site. However, it’s possible that such information was not available.   If you have rights holder information about any material in our collection, please email us.

Further information about copyright law may be found at: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/