Participating in the Creative Europe project They: Live which is focused on the researching student life on campuses from Second World War until present days, opened several archival and recordkeeping issues. Archival practice regarding documenting student activities and preserving historical resources about students reveals different approaches in European and Anglo-American context, especially concerning tradition of specialised and university archives, as well as, approaches to preservation of private and public records. This paper reflects on concepts of participatory documentary practices, semantic interconnectivity between public and private archives and importance of critical acquisition policies concerning documenting student lives, with example provided from the University of Zagreb archival practice.