Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Staff photographer for University of Michigan News and Information Services and contract photographer for the University of Michigan Athletic Department. Includes negatives and contact prints of game action photos of UM athletic competitions, 1978-2000 and some personal and family photos.

The Robert Kalmbach photograph collection consists primarily of 35mm negatives and contact sheets of University of Michigan athletic competitions and represents his work as a contract photographer for the Athletic department. He shot nearly every home football game between 1969 and 1998 and generally traveled to Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State away games,. He also photographed most men's home basketball and hockey game games and several games or matches each season for other sports. His photos include some to the classic images of Michigan athletics and have been widely published in Athletic Department Media Guides, game programs and other publications.

The photos are primarily black and white, though after the mid 1980s the football photos frequently include one or more rolls of color shots. the photos are arranged by sport and thereunder chronologically by year and event. For each event the negatives have been placed in protective sleeves with matching contact sheets based on roll numbers assigned by Kalmbach. For football games (and occasionally other games) with multiple rolls, the numbering system does not always correspond to the actual sequence of the game. Some of the sports photos are identified as being taken by John Heafield, another News and Information Service photographer who occasionally worked with Kalmbach. The athletic photos are organized by sport and thereunder chronologically.

The collection also includes a small number of slides and transparencies of athletic events.

Records of University of Michigan office (and its predecessor administrative offices) responsible for external fund raising and development activities, including subject files of development officials Arthur Brandon, Lyle Nelson, and Michael Radock; staff files; and photographs.

The records of the Vice President for Development date from 1948 to the present and measure 39.5 linear feet. They reflect the basic concerns of the office for these four decades: preserving and improving the university's public image and planning major fundraising efforts. Unfortunately, both activities are incompletely documented. In the area of public relations the records tend to discuss how immediate problems will be dealt with, rather than overall conceptions of the university's image. The thought behind the innovative fundraising devices created or employed by the office is sometimes recorded through consultant reports, but in general is not well documented.

The manuscript records have been divided into two subgroups, one representing the records of the vice president (or senior staff person, for those years in which there was no vice presidency), the other containing records created by the development office. The Vice Presidents subgroup has been divided by the name of each person who has held the office: Arthur Brandon, Lyle Nelson, and Michael Radock. Researchers should note that since Nelson and Radock used their predecessor's files for some time before inaugurating their own records, the relationship between office tenure and file dates is not an exact one. The Development Office subgroup contains records of that office and its subsidiary units. Several accessions of Development Office records received in 1989 and 1990 have been grouped together as Development Office subgroup: 1989-1990 accessions.