The Alfred King Chapman Room serves as the depository for the Colby College Archives ("Colbiana.") The historical records of the College from 1813 to the present are kept here. This archive includes administrative and curricular policy documents, information on student life and customs, books by Colby authors,  and Senior Scholar theses. There are complete runs of the Echo (student newspaper),  the Alumnus/Colby magazine (alumni publication) and the Oracle (student yearbook).

The Colbiana Collection also contains over 300 linear feet of files for deceased alumni/ae, administrators and faculty. Other collection highlights include the letters of Jeremiah Chaplin (first president of then Waterville College) to his wife Marcia, the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Collection, and the Photograph Collection.  It also contains the papers and diaries of three Colby men who had distinguished military service during the Civil War, Benjamin F. Butler, Colby 1838, and Richard Cutts Shannon, Colby 1862, and Henry Clay Merriam, Colby 1864, who led a black bridgade ( the the 73rd Infantry Corps d'Afrique out of Louisiana) during the Civil War.

 Among Shannon's diaries written during service in the Civil War,  the most notable is written on leaves of the book  "Manual of Grecian Antiquities."  Cutts was captured at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 and held for 18 days in Libby Prison in Richmond. He entered his daily notations on the leaves of the book which he purchased while being held prisoner.

Brief History of Colby College (online exhibit in the Maine Memory Network, a statewide database administered by the Maine Historical Society)

Colby Sports History (site created by Alumni Relations staff using images from Special Collections)

Brief Biography of Jeremiah Chaplin

Elijah Parish Lovejoy Collection

Jack Coombs Collection

"Little Talks" programs now available

Earl Smith publishes Mayflower Hill: A History of Colby College in 2006
Link to Colby Bookstore to purchase Earl's book