Founded on May 1, 1966, the Oberlin College Archives is an administrative unit authorized by the Board of Trustees at its June 1962 meeting. The Archivist has reported to one of the senior administrative offices and outside of the Library during its entire history.

Over time the holdings of the College Archives have been housed in three locations: Cox Administration Building, up to 1967; Bosworth Hall, 1967-1973; and the Mudd Center, 1974 to present. During the 1990s the College Archives also occupied ancillary storage space on the fourth floor of the Carnegie Library Building.

Between 1899 and the early 1960s Oberlin's Corporate Secretary served as the "unofficial" Archivist and was responsible for maintaining and servicing institutional records. Non-institutional records, often referred to as "Oberliniana," were kept by the College Library. George Morris Jones, 1899-1938, and Donald M. Love, 1938-1962, served as secretary and archivist before a professional archivist was employed. William E. Bigglestone served as the first archivist (May 1, 1966-July 31, 1986). He was succeeded by Roland M. Baumann on January 1, 1987.

For additional details on the movement to establish an Archives and on the tenures of Bigglestone and Baumann, respectively, readers should consult the Archives' annual reports, 1966 to 1999, and two written pieces: Roland M. Baumann, "Oberlin College and the Movement to Establish an Archives, 1920-1966," The Midwestern Archivist, 13 (1988): 27-38; and Lisa Hicks, "The Development of the Oberlin College Archives, [1966-1986]," which was a paper submitted to the Kent State University School of Library Science in fulfillment of Ms. Hicks' 1991 M.L.S. Degree. This unpublished paper is filed in the "Oberlin File" (RG 21).