In 1976, looking for a summer job that would advance my career goals, I approached the director of the State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) to see if there were any special projects on the docket. As it turned out, yes: the SHSI wanted to gather oral histories with owner-operators of century farms, a corollary of Iowa’s Century Farms Program which began in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial Celebration. That summer I conducted a pilot project, which led to a major collecting effort in 1978 to create oral histories with about 80 owner-operators of century farms in northwest Iowa. Several families also donated documents and photographs pertaining to their farm’s history.

Asking people to sign a donor release allowing recorded interviews to be used for research and educational purposes was straightforward, but asking them to consider donating prized photographs and personal papers always entailed serious discussions about where they would go, how they would be cared for, who could use them, and why they had value beyond family history. Recently, I had cause to wonder whether collecting Iowa history will, in the future, be impeded by a weird disdain for, or perhaps fear of, history that has recently seeped into political life.

You might have seen the bland news article that ran a couple of weeks ago in the Times-Republican and other papers announcing that the SHSI’s Centennial Building Research Center in Iowa City will permanently close on December 31, 2025. The press release cited “sustained funding challenges” as the reason, although, in truth, there have been repeated discussions about closing the Iowa City center for about four decades. The press release went on to state that “ongoing dialogue between partners and institutions across Iowa continue, as logistics and collection management considerations are weighed.” It also stated that a $5 million appropriation approved by the state legislature will be used to expand and modernize archival storage at the State Historical Building in Des Moines to accommodate the 34,700 cubic feet of collections that are slated to be transferred from Iowa City.

Too bad but no big deal, you might think. Well, when the principal partner in the supposed ongoing dialogue — the SHSI Board of Trustees — met on June 26, the verbiage of the press release met the proverbial fan. Right off the bat, one trustee asked why the board had not been consulted before the press release went out. Adam Steen, Director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, who is leading the closure effort, responded, and I quote, “This may sound cold, but nothing technically requires that.” Steen heaped on more insult by implying that the board of trustees was irrelevant: he and his “team” — never identified — “made the decision based upon our experts analyzing the situation.” So much for Iowa nice.

Then, in a rambling back-and-forth it became clear that the expanded archival storage, scheduled to be ready sometime in 2028, will accommodate no more than 40 percent of the collections housed in Iowa City. Where the rest would go is an open question because, as more than one person acknowledged, there is no existing archival repository in the state that can absorb the other 60 percent. State Archivist Tony Jahn tried to reassure folks that his staff would evaluate which collections had “statewide interest,” whatever that means, and would go to Des Moines and which would be de-accessioned and go elsewhere or possibly be destroyed.

When a retired SHSI staff professional pressed him on who exactly will evaluate the collections since four librarian/archivists have recently been fired, Jahn shot back, “Not in Iowa City. They’re all with us.” This must have come as surprising news to the two librarian/archivists in Iowa City, who just days earlier had been told that their jobs were being eliminated, effective early July.

All the dissembling and back-peddling might have been perversely amusing except that something truly precious is at stake: the stuff of Iowa history.

When donors give up possession of personal papers, family heirlooms, organization records, and other things that have lasting value as pieces of the infinite mosaic of Iowa history, they do so with the explicit understanding that the State Historical Society of Iowa, legally an appendage of the state government, will preserve and care for those materials in perpetuity, and will make them available to the public for research and educational purposes. Signed donor agreements spell this out.

It matters not one bit what anyone thinks about who is writing history or how history is being told. The point is that archives are essential to understanding the past. Archival practices are not perfect, but the key to assembling a rich archive hinges entirely on countless individuals and groups of people demonstrating a willingness to contractually relinquish ownership of photographs, journals and diaries, correspondence, records and recordings, maps, and other material items of historical value in return for their perpetual care. And the SHSI’s collections are very rich. If donors cannot trust the SHSI to preserve and care for the stuff of Iowa history, the pipeline will falter and possibly fail.

This is why we should care about the closure effort that is underway right now. On display at the June 26 meeting was a bureaucratic notion that a team of, well, I don’t know who, could extract 40 percent of the Iowa City collections by the end of this year, which will then go to who knows where until 2028, with the fate of the remaining 60 percent disturbingly unclear. This has provoked an understandable backlash effort to keep the Iowa City collections intact in the Centennial Building. After 168 years of amassing historical materials-the SHSI was formed in 1857-the agency is suddenly being forced into quickly shrinking its collections to fit the projected volume of space that will be available in 2028. Everything about the closure effort is backward and rushed. Precisely what is needed is more transparency and less haste.

Although I cannot condone Steen’s approach, it IS time to rethink the SHSI’s collections policies with space limitations in mind. These are real, and they will intensify as time goes on. We’re talking about the whole of Iowa history here, past and future, and the collections policies of the SHSI have implications for those of myriad university-based, regional, and local historical organizations throughout the state. A measured approach focused on the welfare of existing collections and the trust that is asked of potential donors might reasonably begin by organizing a summit of archivists, librarians, and curators to develop broad statewide collecting guidelines and cooperative practices, which could help the SHSI better manage the scope of its collections going forward. Such an approach would not produce results by December 31, 2025. But 2028 would be a reasonable mark.

Rebecca Conard is the author or co-author of three books and several articles on Iowa history. As part of her career in public history, she has worked with the SHSI in various capacities since 1976, both as a paid consultant and willing volunteer.