Library of Michigan seeks yearbooks to build its collection

The Library of Michigan is working to catalog the glory days of Michigan youth and is looking to the public for assistance.

An agency within the Michigan Department of Education, the Library of Michigan is dedicated to collecting, preserving and providing access to the history of the state, part of which is amassing a collection of high school, college/university, and vocational school yearbooks.

“Yearbooks offer a unique snapshot of Michigan’s communities, which capture not just academic achievements but also the social, cultural, and historical landscape of the state through generations,” the library said in  a press release. “They also provide a rich resource for tracing family histories, local communities, and Michigan’s evolution over time.”

The goal of the Michigan yearbook collection is to preserve complete sets of yearbooks from all areas of the state.

“Yearbooks are more than just names and photos,” said State Librarian Randy Riley. “They are time capsules to our youth, which chronicle our own individual stories and which bridge us to the eras of past Michiganders.”

Several thousand yearbooks are already available for researchers at the Library of Michigan’s W. Kalamazoo Street location in Lansing. But officials say many regions of the state still need to be represented in the collection, primarily in the rural areas of the Lower Peninsula and across the Upper Peninsula. 

Schools, libraries and members of the public are invited to contribute to the project by donating their yearbooks to the Library of Michigan.

More information about the yearbook collection initiative or other ways to donate to the Library of Michigan can be found online at Michigan.gov/LibraryGift. 

Potential donors are asked to contact library staff ahead of time to ensure their donations do not duplicate items already in the collection. That can be done by calling 517-335-1477 or emailing [email protected].