Wes Cowan, from the popular PBS television series History Detectives, recently visited IU to celebrate the university's first Archives and Special Collections Month.

"We're all interested in our past," Cowan told an audience at the Indiana Memorial Union. "You all have a piece of furniture, a painting, a box of letters in your house right now." And, he said, you probably want to know about their history.

"What History Detectives does," he said, "is tap into history with a little 'h' -- the history that you curate, the history you walk around with every day."  History with a "big H" is the broad continuum, the grand scope of time.

Listen to a brief observation by Wes Cowan about the importance of archival materials.

Read a story from the Indiana Daily Student.