Historical Collections:  The mission of the Institute for Regional Studies is to foster understanding of regional life through research on, teaching about, and service to those regions with particular importance to North Dakota State University. These regions include the Red River Valley, the state of North Dakota, the plains of North America (comprising both the Great Plains of the United States and the prairies of Canada), and comparable regions of other continents.

The Institute’s web site (http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndirs/) contains descriptions of all major manuscript collections,  together with copies of finding aids and examples of some of the documents.  The institute has thousands of photographs, including several hundred that are available on the Internet “American Memory” site: The Northern Plains Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection and the F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collection (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html).

Genealogical Materials at the Institute: The Institute maintains several collections that are of use for genealogical research.  These include the Pioneer Biography files, the Andrew Rowberg Biography File of Norwegian Americans in North Dakota, North Dakota Naturalization records, and records of the Federal and territorial censuses.

Services Offered by the Institute:  Most collections are open to researchers without restriction and the Institute staff will assist researchers with reference help.  Photocopies can be made of most materials, however, manuscripts, small collections, photographs, etc. must be copied by staff.  Cataloged books may be copied on library copy machines with permission of the staff.  Copying of fragile and oversize items may not be allowed.

Consult the Institute’s web site (http is above) for further information, or contact the research staff for information on obtaining reproductions of photographs or documents.