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Attribution & Citations

Smith College Special Collections

Attribution

Please provide an attribution when using materials from Smith College Special Collections. This can include citing, quoting, or the reproduction of images. Attribution of materials creates a pathway for other researchers to find our materials.

If your research is being published in any form we would love to know about it. You can send us a citation or link to: specialcollections@smith.edu.

Citations

Citing SCSC Materials

We have no preferred citation style or format but ask that you include the following elements in any citation:

  • A clear identification of the item you are citing
  • The name of the collection from which the item comes
  • The call number for the collection
  • Our name (Smith College Special Collections)
  • If you are citing materials you’ve accessed online, please include the URL of the catalog record or finding aid for the collection

For citation information for each individual archival collection as a whole, click the citation button at the top right of the finding aid page. A common example is as follows:

[item name or description]. Jane Fonda papers, Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00477, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts. https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/1104 Accessed January 21.

Citing Primary Sources

There are specific component parts you’ll need to have to create your citation. These include:

  • Description and date of item
    • Smith College Observatory in 1889
    • Photographer: unknown
  • Box/folder number
    • 252.1, folder 3
  • Collection Name
    • Buildings Records
  • Collection Number
    • CA-MS-00104
  • Repository name and location
    • College Archives
    • Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, MA

Example Citations

While citation styles vary the arrangement of these parts, they all use the information listed above. The following are example citations in Chicago Style of items from each of the repositories in the Smith College Special Collections. Please check which citation style you are meant to use to ensure your citation is properly formatted.

Other primary sources may be cited following typical citation conventions. For example: a newspaper article from the 19th century, accessed in a library database, would be cited the same way as a newspaper article from the 21st century.

Mortimer Rare Book Collection

Diary of Newton Arvin, 1950, Box 19, Folder 18, Newton Arvin Papers, MRBC-MS-00014, Smith College Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections.

Smith College Archives

Birthday Dinner -- Correspondence, 1959, Box 684, Folder 3, Albert Francis Blakeslee Papers, CA-MS-00039, Smith College Archives, Smith College Special Collections.

Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History

Annotated Russian to English Vocabulary List, 1918, Box 1, Folder 8, Elizabeth Dickerson Papers, SSC-MS-00601, Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History, Smith College Special Collections.