Donating Records & Photos

Frequently asked questions about donating to the Archives

1. Are my old papers, photographs, or other documents important?

If you have ever looked through old family photos, letters, diaries, sound recordings and other documents to learn what your family was like before you were born, and to help you recall the events of your own life, then you understand how important these records are for preserving your family's history.

In the same way, records such as these can be important in preserving the history of a community, a state, or even a nation, allowing us to learn about life in the past, and allowing future generations to learn about life in our times.

For this purpose, the State Archives of Florida collects, preserves, and makes available for research the historically significant records of Florida's territorial and state governments as well as private manuscripts—that is, collections of personal and family papers and photographs such as yours.

To accomplish this, we accept donations of historically significant collections that provide information about the way Floridians have lived throughout the region's history, how Florida communities and society developed, the people and events that shaped Florida's history, and the role of government and its relation to the people of Florida.

2. What does the State Archives of Florida collect?

The Archives collects original letters, diaries, financial records, land records, legal documents, photographs, sound recordings and other records and papers of Florida individuals, families, churches, businesses, institutions, and organizations.

We are particularly interested in complete collections providing significant and unique information about Florida's civic, social, religious, governmental, political, military, economic, or educational history and development, and materials that document native populations and early European exploration and settlement of the state.

We accept a wide variety of formats, including:

Paper originals
Archival-quality microfilm
Photographs (especially when identified by names, places, events, dates and photographers' names)
Audio and video recordings
Digital records
Photographs
- Digitally-born images (those taken with a digital camera) must be a minimum of 300 DPI at 5”x7” size.

In evaluating potential donations, we look for materials that meet accepted archival appraisal criteria, such as completeness, readability, credibility, uniqueness, and condition, to ensure that researchers have access to information that is both useful and usable.

We do not collect artifacts, newspapers, books or other publications, commercially-released audio or video recordings, or non-Florida-related materials.

3. Should I donate my papers to the State Archives, to a local historical society, or should I keep them?

The history of Florida is heavily rooted in local communities, events and people. These local events and activities often have broader implications, reflecting issues, attitudes and developments well beyond their immediate area.

Unless your papers document something that clearly has only local importance—for instance, a particular neighborhood in the community finally got sewer lines installed after years of bitter infighting among local politicians—then they are potentially of interest to the State Archives.

Some types of records, such as individual certificate-type documents (e.g., great-grandpa's deed to the old homestead or Uncle Fred's medical school diploma), are usually primarily of interest to the family but rarely have significant historical value for the broader community or public.

However, a collection of personal papers that includes some of these certificate-type documents might be of potential interest, depending on what information is contained in the collection as a whole.

If you have materials you think might have historical value, we would be very happy to hear from you to discuss your materials and determine if they would be appropriate for the State Archives collections, or would be more appropriately preserved at the local level or in your family or historical organization.

4. Can I donate copies and keep my originals?

Just as museums prefer to collect original artifacts rather than reproductions, the State Archives prefers to collect original records and papers rather than copies.

Archives researchers prefer to use originals both for their readability and so that they can be assured of the integrity of the materials they are studying.

Original records also provide important historical clues that copies lack; for example, the types of paper and ink used can indicate a time period.

The Archives will be happy to provide you, free of charge, with scans or photocopies of any small collection that you donate, or copies of selected materials from any large collection that you donate. In exceptional cases, we will accept high-quality copies of very significant materials should a donor be unable to part with the originals.

We will accept photographs on loan, scan and copy the originals, and return originals to the donor. Strict archival guidelines necessitate Archives staff digitize and/or copy the originals in-house.

5. Can I sell or loan my papers to the Archives instead of donating them?

The State Archives has no acquisition budget to purchase collections and relies on the goodwill of citizens who share our interest in preserving Florida's history to build our historical manuscripts research collection.

We can best use the limited resources available for preserving and cataloging records and making them available to researchers by only collecting records which will remain permanently in the Archives and permanently available to the public for research. For this reason, the Archives does not accept deposits of collections on loan.

6. Will the Archives appraise my collection for tax purposes?

The Archives cannot appraise donated materials to determine their fair market value since we are considered an interested party in the transaction. Such evaluations do not meet the IRS definition of "qualified appraisal." To qualify as acceptable for income tax use, the appraisal must be performed by an objective, qualified appraiser, unconnected with either the donor or the institution, hired for this purpose by the donor.

In addition, we cannot provide tax advice or interpretation of the tax laws to answer individual questions. Donors should consult an expert tax advisor for information on the use of gifts or property for charitable contribution deductions.

7. What will the Archives do with my donation?

The Archives will store donated materials in archival, acid-free containers and folders in our secure, climate-controlled storage facility.

Archivists will describe and catalog donated collections and will post descriptive information about them in the State Archives of Florida online catalog.

Archivists may remove duplicates, items that do not have historical significance, and items that do not fit our collecting scope, and will return those materials to the donor or otherwise dispose of them in accordance with the donor's wishes as indicated on the Deed of Gift (PDF).

We will make donated collections available for viewing by researchers in our public research facility and will, upon request, provide researchers with copies from the collections, unless such copying is specifically prohibited or would endanger fragile materials.

A wide variety of researchers use our historical records collections, among them historians, educators, students, genealogists, print and broadcast journalists, filmmakers, government officials and employees, and attorneys.

The State Archives uses items from our collections in exhibits displayed at our research facility.

We also place selected items from our collections on our Florida Memory website, which utilizes original documents, photographs and other collection materials to illustrate significant moments in the state's history, provide educational resources for students of all ages, and make collections available for historical research.

8. Will my donation appear on the Florida Memory website?

We cannot offer display on Florida Memory as a condition of donation. Because digitization to archival standards requires extensive staff and financial resources, we are only able to digitize and place on Florida Memory a fraction of the collections we hold.

These are usually collections that have exceptionally great historical significance, support a planned display theme, are heavily used, and/or cannot be accessed in their original form due to their fragile condition.

9. How can I donate my papers, photographs or other documents to the Archives?

To discuss donating your historical records to the Archives, contact us at:

R.A. Gray Building
500 South Bronough Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250
archives@dos.myflorida.com

If you call us at 850.245.6700, select Option 1 for the State Archives, then select Option 3 for the Archives Donations and Transfers.

You are welcome to make an appointment to bring historical materials to the Archives for review or to send copies of such materials to the Archives for evaluation. Please contact us before arriving with your materials so that we can be sure to have staff available to assist you.

Archives staff will also be happy to visit you at your home or organization to review your materials.

Donors are asked to sign a Deed of Gift (PDF) transferring to the State Archives legal custody of the records and any copyright interests they hold in the records, thus allowing us to make the records fully accessible to the public for historical research.

10. How can I donate my digital photographs to the Archives?

Please see the Digital Donations page for more instructions and information about donating digital photographs.