We know our reading room is special and our researchers know it is an inspiring place to make connections and think deep thoughts. Visitors stop by with tours or by themselves to gaze out the wonderful windows. And earlier this week we ended up on a list of “Incredible Reading Rooms Around the World.”

The Douglas Strain Reading Room in the Special Collections & Archives Research Center houses the History of Science book collection. The floor is made of giant timber bamboo from Central Northern China, the furniture is white maple, and ginormous windows let in so much light we tend to forget when it’s winter in Oregon. Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration…

Nestled in a corner of the Strain Reading Room is a room with items from Linus Pauling’s office at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine — including his desk and chalkboard. Hanging on the walls are other items such as a panoramic image of Pauling’s Caltech office, a portrait of Ava Helen Pauling, and a special keepsake from the United States Postal Service marking the release of the Pauling postage stamp in March 2008.

Stop by and take a look — you’ll agree that we have an incredible reading room!

Trevor Sandgathe

We celebrated our fabulous library staff last week and SCARC’s own Trevor Sandgathe won the Outstanding Classified Employee of the Year award! This post comes from Anne Bahde’s award presentation speech for of Trevor — after reading it I think you’ll agree that we are lucky to have him on staff.

Trevor has played a critical role throughout the Special Collections and Archives department merge, especially in regard to collection management and public services operations. Over the numerous months of this process, he has worked hard to articulate and advance both departmental and library goals, and has contributed significantly to the development of merged processes and policies.

As the plans for the departmental merge began, Trevor initiated the process of preparing the 5th floor facilities to accommodate the anticipated move of a very large volume of third floor collections. In doing this, he identified numerous collection management problems in both departments, and presented creative ideas for solutions to these issues. Trevor worked to maximize space for collections, to identify and solve preservation and facilities issues, and to simplify shelving and retrieval. He subsequently led the work on a major shift of the rare book collections, carefully consolidating them to conserve stack space, streamline paging operations, and to identify volumes in need of special preservation care. Because of this vital work, the department is poised to better serve our patrons, and to better manage and preserve our merged collections for future research and teaching.

Trevor contributed significantly to the procedures and policies related to public services operations. As the combination of public service points began, Trevor worked on the Public Services Merger Team to explore issues related to services for patrons. Once again, he identified problems with current practices, and proposed resourceful and innovative solutions to these issues. In consultation with the Public Services Merger Team, he developed several new processes related to patron registration and orientation procedures, collection retrieval, and recording of statistics. He drafted a comprehensive Public Services Manual that outlined the combined policies for the departments, circulated this to all staff, and contributed to the training of staff members on these new desk operations. In addition to this work, Trevor has also served countless hours on our public services desk. He continually takes the extra time needed to teach visitors to better locate and evaluate our collections, ensuring a rewarding research experience for our patrons. His fine work with public services operations recently led to him being named Public Services Coordinator for SCARC.

In both collection management and public services areas, he has provided excellent service, and created resources and processes that are enabling SCARC to better serve its patrons. Trevor’s accomplishments, as well as his good nature, team spirit, and willingness to engage with problems to work towards solutions, have promoted a much-needed collaborative spirit between the two merging departments. His practical, sensible ideas for improvement have made the daily work of the department easier and more fluid. He continually goes above and beyond for both SCARC staff and patrons, and for that we truly thank him.

SCARC staff are working hard to update one of our most frequently used collections — the Office of the President!

Presidents of OSU

Recently updated finding aids for portions of the President’s Office Records include:

President’s Office Records of John D. Letcher, 1892 (RG 013 – SG 02)

• http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/rg013sg02/index.html
• http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv83007

The President’s Office Records of John D. Letcher contain correspondence between Letcher and Wallis Nash, Secretary of the Board of Regents, during the month of February 1892. The correspondence relates to Letcher’s appointment to Acting President of the college following the death of President B. L. Arnold and operation of the State Agricultural College.

President’s Office Records of John M. Bloss, 1892-1897 (RG 013 – SG 03)

• http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/rg013sg03/index.html
• http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv43066

The President’s Office Records of John M. Bloss are comprised of correspondence and reports related to the management and operation of the Oregon State Agricultural College between 1892 and 1897.

President’s Office Records of H.B. Miller, 1896-1926 (RG 013 – SG 04)

• http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/rg013sg04/index.html
• http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv34780

The President’s Office Records of H. B. Miller contain extensive correspondence regarding the operation of the State Agricultural College of Oregon during Miller’s 1896-1897 presidency, a comprehensive report describing the activities of the College during the 1897 academic year, and copies of a biography and an obituary for Miller.

President’s Office Records of Thomas Gatch, 1897-1907 (RG 013 – SG 05)

• http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/rg013sg05/index.html
• http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv82626

The President’s Office Records of Thomas Gatch contain correspondence and reports related to the operation of the Oregon Agricultural College and include detailed reports created by the OAC faculty and materials submitted to the Secretary of the Interior. Gatch served as President of Oregon Agricultural College from 1897 to 1907.

Check out our (soon to be updated) Gallery of the Presidents of Oregon State University.

There are many reasons the 5th floor reading room is a lovely place to be… We see sun breaks in the clouds, we watch travelers traversing the quad, and we have fabulous collections to share. And last Friday we saw two great “views from above” with a tree planting and impromptu concert from the OSU Meistersingers.

One hundred years ago the class of 1913 planted the majestic elm trees we now enjoy in the Library Quad, and we celebrated Arbor Day & Earth Week on April 26th at noon with another tree gifting. While our newest addition is still small, we have big hopes for it!

• Read all about it — and watch a video of the planting — at the LIFE@OSU site.

And before the noon-hour was through the OSU Meistersingers showed up! Quite a crowd of lunch time wanderers stopped to listen and several students pulled out their phones to record to the serenade.

Choral concert in the quad

Such a treat!

Last week University Relations & Marketing borrowed one of our famous black and orange hats for a photo shoot with alumnus Ken Austin (class of 1953), who served as OSU’s original “Benny Beaver” when he was a student in the early 1950s.

Ken Austin with Benny Beaver, photo by SCARC director Larry Landis

Back on the field last week, Austin remembered a great story about sitting on the crossbar of the goal post during a game.  Stanford was driving toward a touchdown and Austin was perched up high to thwart their concentration when they were closing in on the goal line. Game officials told Ken to get down or OSC would be assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty… Truth be told, a beaver in a brown shag carpet head might have thrown me off!

Going to my “go to site” for quick historical quips (George Edmonston’s writings on the OSU Alumni Association page), I found a treasure trove in “Up Close and Personal: Primal Traditions,” a piece that takes a look at four basic traditions every Beaver fan should know. Edmonston writes of Austin that

Growing up in the northern Willamette Valley near St. Paul, Austin had delighted as a boy watching rodeo clowns perform at the town’s annual Fourth of July Rodeo. After failing at an attempt to become Oregon State’s Yell King for the 1952 football season, Austin was approached by the guy who beat him out, Bill Sundstrom, who then asked him if he might want to join the rally squad as a school mascot, that is, dressing up as a beaver for the games. In those days, student mascots were rare in college football in the West, although Cal had Oskie the Bear and Stanford had its “Indian.” Why not a beaver for OSC?

Austin “took the idea and developed it into one of OSU’s most cherished traditions: student volunteers spicing up athletic events as Benny Beaver.” However, Austin isn’t actually the first student parading in a beaver suit… Edmonston reports that “[o]ver the years, it has been often reported that Austin was the first person to dress as a beaver for an Oregon State football game. This honor apparently goes to OSU alumnus Doug Chambers of Salem, who dressed in a homemade beaver suit for a halftime skit during a home game during the 1939 season. Chambers’ character didn’t have a name.”

Read more about Austin’s memories of being Benny on the Alumni Association site.

History student, SCARC student worker, and all around fabulous person Hannah Mahoney won one of the Libraries’  Undergraduate Research Awards this year for her paper “A Global Affair: Understanding 1960s Geopolitics Through the World’s Fair.” The ceremony was yesterday, which meant lots of clapping and a few tears of pride…

The award for humanities evaluated papers on these criteria:

• Creativity, originality, and the extent of the use of library services, collections, and resources, including, but not limited to print, non-print resources, databases, and/or primary sources
• Exceptional ability to locate, select, evaluate, and synthesize library resources
• Demonstration of the use of these resources through the creation of an original project
• Clear and effective writing skills
• Responsible use of information including appropriate and accurate citations and credits
• An essay that provides evidence of significant personal growth in methods of research and inquiry

Hannah has had lots of experience researching and working in archives, always showing herself to be curious, engaged, and focused on the stories of the people in archives. Her excitement for public history is infectious and she always looks for ways to engage with people and facilitate their own engagement with historic materials. The rest of this post has excerpts from her speech yesterday, which I think really capture why librarians and archivists keep doing what we do!

I want to give a special thanks to Professor Nichols, who I have been lucky enough to have as a mentor this year. I never thought I would meet the professor who would impact me most in college, during my last year. His guidance helped me craft a research paper that I am extremely proud of and made me more confident in my own abilities as an aspiring public historian.

I would also like to thank my research assistant. You may all be thinking, an undergraduate who has a research assistant?! But don’t worry I am just talking about my Dear Ole’ Dad. While all the other students and Dad’s were participating in Dad’s Weekend activities my Dad and I were upstairs looking through rolls and rolls of microfilm. Thank you so much for spending your last Dad’s Weekend helping me research.

A glance at the title, “A Global Affair: Understanding 1960s Geopolitics Through the World’s Fair”, may lead you to the think that you have to be an expert in history, on the 1960’s or on geopolitics, to understand the paper, but that is not the case. I wrote this paper for the non-experts. I used language that would be appealing to all audiences, found sources that would be easily accessible and included photos to keep it interesting.

I have a professor who says, “you shouldn’t end your research at Wikipedia, but you can start it there,” and that is just what I did. I began by writing down a list of key terms I found on the Wikipedia page and entered them into databases such as Academic Search Premier and JSTOR. That yielded a total of one article, but I was able to take the sources from that article and find more leads. As I already mentioned, I used the microfilm rolls from upstairs to look at the New York Times, giving extra attention to the “Letters to the Editors” because I thought they would give interesting points of view. My “neatest” source traveled to me from Cornell. It was a booklet on international exhibitors at the fair that the fair committee at put together. It was a great primary source.

I am proud to say that I am still researching! There are still a few avenues I haven’t explored, mostly the avenue to the New York Public Library to see the New York World’s Fair Collection. I will be taking donations for my trip after this speech!

“Products of intricate woodworking illustrate a rich history of Oregon” article

It’s a nice day — time for a blast from the not too distant past. Collection Archivist Karl McCreary was interviewed in February by a Barometer reporter about the woodworking in the lobby of Bexell Hall. If you are up for a walk, head that way and check it out!