CPRI
National Death Penalty Archives

A chief component of the CPRI plan for a national center on capital punishment is to establish and maintain a collection of archival materials to document the history of capital punishment and to preserve resources for historical scholarship. Through collaboration with the University at Albany Library's M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, the CPRI has established the National Death Penalty Archive.

The primary task in our effort to build the NDPA is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the records of individuals and organizations working on issues related to capital punishment. We are in the process of building a collection that will serve as a valuable resource for historians, researchers, faculty, students, and interested members of the public. We are especially interested in collecting primary documents, such as letters, reports, unpublished writings, personal papers, organizational records, and related materials that currently reside in the hands of activists, scholars, lawyers, family members, and others whose lives have been touched by the death penalty.

The M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives is home to print, manuscript, and archival sources on a wide array of historical topics. The Department's temperature and humidity-controlled storage facility provides over 25,000 cubic feet of shelving space. Donated materials are inventoried, cataloged, and safely re-housed by graduate and undergraduate students, who work under the supervision of library personnel. For additional information on the NDPA, as well as a description of specific collections, go to http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/ndpa.htm.