The Department of Archives & Special Collections takes its mission from the mission of the University, which is to educate. More specifically, the mission of the Department of Archives & Special Collections is twofold. The Archives collect, preserve, and provide access to the official, inactive records of YSU, which includes materials in any format that were generated or received by any of YSU's various administrative divisions and academic departments in the conduct of their daily business. The Special Collections collect, preserve, and provide access to primary and secondary source materials that document the history of the larger city-county-regional area of which YSU is a part. The Department of Archives & Special Collections supports this mission in the following manner:

• By supporting and enabling the administration which provides and maintains the overall structure.
• By determining what evidence is essential, ensuring that the institution creates such evidence, and making that evidence accessible to users regardless of location or format.
• By preserving essential evidence of the institution.
• By providing information that promotes the mission of the institution internally and to the extended community.
• By supporting teaching and enhancing the curriculum as appropriate.
• By supporting the research of the faculty, students, and other scholars through access to information.
• By promoting further understanding through discovery and dissemination of knowledge.

The basic goal of the YSU Archives & Special Collections is to aid the institution in its survival and growth by supporting the University's education mission. To fulfill the responsibilities of that role the Archives & Special Collections have the following goals:

• To acquire or identify records of long-term historical, evidential, legal, fiscal, and administrative value to YSU as well as those records that document the history of the city-county-regional area, and to preserve and provide access to them so that the archives is visible as a resource that promotes knowledge and efficient operation of the University and supports and nourishes teaching and learning at YSU and in the wider intellectual community.
• To appraise, collect, organize, describe, make available, and preserve primary and secondary resource materials emphasizing the documentation of YSU and the larger city-county-regional area.
• To provide adequate facilities for the retention and preservation of such records.
• To serve as a resource to stimulate and nourish creative teaching and learning through the use of primary research materials and provide instruction in the use of those materials.
• To serve research and scholarship by making available and encouraging the use of its collections by members of the University and the public at large.
• To disseminate research and information concerning the documentary heritage of the University and the region.
• To implement records management by formulating policy and procedures that will ensure the collection and preservation of University archival materials.
• To support the educational objectives of YSU and the broad mission and program objectives of Maag Library.
• To serve a broad clientele, with special emphasis on the academic community of the University and particular concern for the population of the larger city-county-regional area.
• To acquire strong primary source collections which document regional life and development of the city, county, and region to sustain significant research projects based upon this documentation.