Business librarians regularly field wide-ranging questions from researchers exploring big questions about people, products, culture, history, and ideas. At “Beyond the Ledger: Exploring Corporate Archives & Business Histories,” a June 30 session of the American Library Association’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia, experts in business librarianship weighed in on how to leverage collections to support research.
“Corporate archives are a key part of a society’s cultural heritage,” said Annette Bochenek, assistant professor of information studies at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies and coauthor of a 2024 paper, “Business Archives as a Tool for Academic Business Researchers,” in the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship.
“Accessing business archives can be a bit of a mystery and it may take some time to find the right contact,” Bochenek said. “But once connected, business archivists can be incredibly helpful in pointing you to resources within their collections.”
Another challenge is decentralization; one company’s materials might be spread among multiple, people, companies, libraries, and subscription databases, or simply lost to time. Access varies even across a single corporate archive, Bochenek said. She pointed to Ford Motor Company, which donates records to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, while retaining certain confidential or proprietary materials.
She encourages researchers to engage corporate archivists (the Society of American Archivists keeps a directory) as research partners: learn what you can about the collections, come prepared with a clear research question, and keep them in the loop on what you’re working toward.
“Business archivists often rely on usage stories to demonstrate the value of their collections within the company,” Bochenek said. “Sharing your output not only validates their work, it also helps advocate for the archive’s relevance.”
Tim Mahoney, manuscripts librarian at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library, spoke about academic library collections and what they can teach us about business today.
Baker Library is the oldest and largest US collection focused solely on business records, with more than 48,000 linear feet of materials dating from the 14th century to the present. Its holdings include Early American account books and merchant records, manufacturing records from the Industrial Revolution, the personal papers of noted business leaders, and individual corporate archives.
Among its most well-known archives, Mahoney said, is the Polaroid Corporation collection, encompassing patent materials, prototypes, and tens of thousands of photographs. “Polaroid was one of the most innovative post–World War II companies, known for its iconic instant camera. But it’s also a story of decline and collapse,” he said.
“Sometimes our stacks feel like a graveyard of bankrupt companies,” Mahoney said. “But these contemporary archives are valuable for studying postwar innovation, touching on everything from R&D and marketing to corporate governance and global strategy.”
