In 1968, Lambda Alpha established the Lambda Alpha Literary Archives at Cornell Univer- sity in Ithaca, New York. Under the terms of its agreement with Cornell, the Department of Manuscripts and Archives at Cornell was designated as a repository for archival material of both the organization and its members. Since the program was established, research papers and the published works of more than 100 members have been collected and cataloged. Outstanding professionals in the fields of architecture, city and regional plan- ning, economics, banking and real estate have contributed to this collection. The archives also contain various records of the International organization and its local chapters.
The Archives program is intended to preserve the archival materials, and to make them accessible to members, scholars and researchers. The papers and records in the Archives are housed in acid-free enclosures and shelved in humidity and temperature-controlled stacks in supervised reading rooms. Descriptions of content and location aids provide ready access to collections and a published guide to the holdings in the archives is available. Individual collection descriptions are also available through the Research Library Infor- mation Network (RLIN) a national data base maintained by research libraries, museums, and historical societies.
Cornell University was selected as the appropriate repository because of Cornell's large holdings in the fields of architecture and city and regional planning. Cornell's collections document the founding and early development of the planning profession, the work of architects and landscape architects, and the development of zoning. Its collections also contain current work in these fields.