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Antiochiana

The Archives and Special Collections of Antioch College

Antiochiana began in 1905 as a collection of historical artifacts gathered by librarian Bessie L. Totten (1876-1963), Antioch College class of 1900.

The term “Antiochiana” first appeared in 1898, when The Antiochian, Antioch’s oldest continuously published periodical, first reported a non-circulating section of the library where “not a book is to be found there, whose author is not either an Antiochian or one who has been connected with the college, or whose subject concerns the college history.” Miss Totten, who began her long Antioch career as Assistant Librarian in 1900, recalled how the librarian told her to take special care of these books, and she began to expand the collection. Miss Totten assumed the title of Curator of Antiochiana upon retiring in 1941, which she held until her death in 1963. Remarkably, in its century of existence Antiochiana has had only four directors.

In 1983, the Olive Kettering Library was designated as the official overseer of the Antioch archives, with authority to develop policies for retention and housing of documents and historical materials.

Antiochiana
Major Collections

The centerpieces of Antiochiana’s collections are the papers of Antioch College’s two most dynamic past presidents, Horace Mann and Arthur Morgan, and the extensive Bahnsen negative collection.

Location

Antiochiana is located on the second floor of the Olive Kettering Library.

Visit Antiochiana

The archives are currently accessible to the public by appointment only. Learn more.

Contact

Office: 937-319-0111
Location: Olive Kettering Library

Songs From the Stacks

Historical perspectives and selections from the archives by archivist Scott Sanders.

For 100 years, a central component of Antioch’s progressive education model has been its flagship Cooperative Education (Co-op) Program, the first to be established as a core component in an undergraduate liberal arts program.