Jeannette Matthew was appointed IU Indianapolis's first university archivist in 1975. Matthew was a perfect choice for the job, having witnessed the growth and development of the IU Indianapolis campus from its origins. She worked as a librarian at IU Indianapolis beginning in 1956, first at the School of Social Work and later in the undergraduate library.
As university archivist, Matthew organized an archives to preserve important documents and recorded the history of the campus. She developed policy statements for the new archives and began the collection with flyers and newspapers from across campus. Professionally organized archives were still in their infancy in the 1970s; the National Archives in Washington, D.C. had only been open since 1973. Matthew is credited with organizing one of the first professional university archives in Indiana.
Matthew loved her job as university archivist. She enjoyed using creative methods to document and share the campus's history. In 1979, Matthew started a lecture series about IU Indianapolis's origins titled "Smack Dab in the Middle of the Swamp." She also collected oral histories of retired faculty in a series titled "The Way it Was."
In 1976, Matthew was appointed to the Commission on College and University Archives of the Society of American Archivists, where she influenced the development of the society's recommendations for best practices in university archives. She was also active in the Indianapolis community, co-founding the Adult Education Council of Greater Indianapolis and serving on the board of directors of the Indiana Women's History Archives. Matthew retired in June 1987 and died in August 2000.
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