When discussing personal papers in university archives, one immediately faces the question of which records belong where. Should personal papers be in such a repository, or do they belong in a manuscript collection? As we all know, the collecting patterns of many institutions have been fortuitous, not logical or systematic. We—and by we I mean all those with a stake in preserving the past in the form of original sources, archivists, curators, and historians alike—should certainly foster the role of reason in building research collections and should therefore support the policy of university archives acquiring materials obviously related to the institution. But we must always be alert to the possibility of important sources being lost if some repository—logical or not— does not latch onto them. Consequently, university archivists should practice their profession in its widest dimension, guiding original sources to appropriate institutions whenever possible but rescuing the perishing if necessary.