The collections of the Harvard University Property Information Resource Center were started in 1956 when the organization was formed as the Planning Office Library. At this time collections were assembled from surveys, planning studies, and reports generated by the Harvard Planning Office. As the need for a central repository for architectural drawings and information relating to Harvard’s built environment became more apparent, the library’s role was expanded to include the collection of these materials. In the late 1960s, the library staff identified several existing collections of drawings throughout Harvard’s campus, the major repositories being at Widener Library and the Department of Buildings and Grounds and began to plan for their consolidation. Since there was no collections policy or collections plan to define collecting goals, some objects were acquired that had no connection to Harvard University, were duplicative, and/or were of no informational value. In 1972 the collection had grown to a point that more storage space was needed, and it was then moved to a newly constructed location in the Harvard University Pusey Library. During the subsequent decades, the scope of the collection was refined but, except for the planning studies and reports, these early materials form the basis of the Architectural Drawings collection that we have today.
In the 1980s a process of consolidating the architectural drawings and documentation for the University’s assets that were dispersed across collections was undertaken. A team surveyed these collections in several locations, including the Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, Radcliffe, and the Chilled Water Plant. Inventories were created, duplicates were discarded, and the remaining drawings were integrated into the Architectural Drawings collection which was microfilmed. Although there was no collections policy or collections plan to define collecting goals, large portions of the materials discovered during this survey remain within the current collection scope. At this time formal cataloguing of the collection was begun but it was not systematic nor comprehensive.
In 1997, following a merger between the Harvard Planning Group and Harvard Real Estate, that formed the new Harvard Planning and Real Estate Department, the library’s name was changed to the Property Information Resource Center, the first professional archivist was hired, and a basic collection scope and collecting policies were drafted.
In 2015 the PIRC migrated its six discrete databases to a new collections management system. This new database allows for the creation and documentation of complex relationships between Objects – Sites (buildings) – Constituents – Events (construction projects) – Shipments (primarily related to digitization). Additionally, the PIRC is now able to capture acquisition, provenance, location, conservation, and additional enriching information related to the collection and its history. A public collection interface is now available, providing access to key metadata about the collection to the public.
Today, the PIRC actively collects new materials in various digital formats generated by capital projects as well as deeds, leases, and other documentation related to building and land acquisitions. The PIRC also seeks to fill in the gaps identified in the historical collections with the goal to create a comprehensive documentary history of the University’s buildings and land assets through the collecting of maps, surveys, books, and visual materials related to Harvard’s architectural history. The PIRC is able to meet its mission and goals through its professional staffing: Lead Archivist, Senior Processing Archivist, Senior Reference Archivist, and Project Processing Archivist.