Category Archives: Uncategorized

Historic Sites Database Now Online

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The State Historic Preservation Office has made its master database of historic buildings and sites in Oregon available online. There are almost 45,000 records in the database, including National Register properties, surveys, and inventory records.

“This is still a rudimentary version,” said Roger Roper, the deputy state historic preservation officer. “There are many features we will be adding over the coming weeks, including the ability to run more complex searches and printout both site-specific data and summary data for groups of buildings. Please read the Disclaimer page for details about the limitations and the ‘coming attractions.'”

They are interested in your feedback, so please send your comments to ORsurvey.feedback@state.or.us.

Finding Aid Additions: July 2008

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We’re starting a new feature on our blog, designed to let you know when we add to our existing online resources and descriptions of our collections. Additionally, and as a means of providing some background information, we thought we’d share a bit about or arrangement and description process.

In our effort to get as many collections described and online, we create collection level descriptions for most collections. What is a collection level description? It means that you’re not likely to find a detailed inventory; it’s more in line with the levels of arrangement and description suggested by Greene and Meissner in their “More Product, Less Process” article. This means that you’ll find a note following many of the titles in this list that tells you whether the finding aid is a preliminary guide or in its final form.

For example, in this round:

  • most (11) are collection-level finding aids
  • 2 are full finding aids (RG 062 and P 259)
  • 5 are for collections received in 2007 (Bartholomew, King, Packard, Williams, and RG 235)
  • one is for a collection received in 2006 (P 259)
  • most (11) are new finding aids
  • 2 are updates of existing finding aids (FV P 069 and FV P 182)
  • 5 are for collections for which we previously had no information available online, other than a title (RG 062, P 053; P 090, P 146, and Gilkey)

In the list that follows, you’ll also notice that we give you a link to both the NWDA guide and the locally hosted PDF—you choose your view, both are the same!

Finally, when we create a new finding aid, we load the file to the Northwest Digital Archives, provide a locally hosted PDF on our site, and produce MARC catalog records that are accessible through the OSU Libraries catalog, Summit, and Worldcat.

For July, the following 13 finding aids were completed:

Bartholomew, Frank H., Collection, 1983-1985

College of Engineering Records, 1930-2002 (RG 062) [full]

College of Engineering Videotapes, circa 1995-1996 (FV P 069)

Gilkey, Beulah, Collection, 1905-1960 [preliminary]

Horticulture Department Photographs, 1900-1980 (P 090) [preliminary]

King, David B., Papers, 1982-1994

Nolan, J.M., Photograph Collection, 1889-1902 (P 053)

Packard, Earl, Papers, 1913-1980

Sewell, James A., Photograph Album, circa 1902-1904 (P 259)

Student Affairs Moving Images, 1963-1995 (FV P 182)

Western Center for Community College Development Records, 1979-2004 (RG 235) [preliminary]

Williams, Gerald W., Collection, 1855-2007 [preliminary]

4-H Photograph Collection, 1913-1988 (P 146) [preliminary]

More Sound Recordings in Best of the Archives!

We have added newly digitized versions of 20 sound recordings (all original 78 rpm disks) to the Best of the Archives. Many thanks to Nathan Georgitis at the University of Oregon for his work in the sound lab to digitize these recordings and to OSU’s Linda Kathman for loading them to Best of the Archives.

  • KOAC Records (RG 015)
    Foresters in Action, 1939: Alouette, Cruiser’s Song, George W. The Dean
  • Music Department Records (RG 148)
    Oregon State Marching Song (undated) & the Oregon State College Band’s OSC Medley, A Tribute to Beard (circa 1947)
  • Alumni Relations Records (RG 035)
    Songs of Oregon State College, circa 1950 (including Oregon State Creed, Hail to Old OSC, and Alma Mater) & Songs of Oregon State College: Within a Vale of Western Mountains, circa 1953 (including Alma Mater, Mighty Beavers, Storm King, Toast to the Team, and more)

Happy listening!

Congratulations to Monique Lloyd!

Please join us in offering our heartfelt congratulations to Monique Lloyd! She has received the Society of American Archivist’s 2008 Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award, which recognizes and acknowledges outstanding minority students. To be considered, the student should be full-time, with a minimum GPA of 3.5, and enrolled in a graduate program focusing on archival management. She will receive full funding to go to the SAA conference this August, which will be held in “sunny” San Francisco.

Monique is an Emporia State University graduate student who worked as a student assistant in the Archives last year, an intern in the Archives in the fall, and is now part of the Library’s on-call pool. To hear more from Monique, please visit her Adventures in Library School blog.

New month, new exhibit in the Archives!

Barack Obama eating at American Dream Pizza? Chelsea Clinton speaking at the MU? Yes, it must be that time again when we get those special visitors & make our voices heard with our votes! But presidents and presidential hopefuls aren’t new to OSU…

Stop by the Archives Reference Room and see our May display “US Presidential Sightings at OSU,” put together by our own student assistant, Kristina Wick.

Chautauqua Program: Event at Heritage Museum in Independence, OR

Pat Courtney Gold presents “Innovators and Traders: Indigenous People of the Columbia River”

Pat Courtney Gold now devotes her time to creating art and lecturing on Plateau Cultural Art. The Wasco traditional art of full-turn twined baskets with geometric human figures and motif unique to Columbia River area was a dying art. Pat revived this art form, and her goal is to preserve the technique and record the traditional designs for future generation.

She has been an artist in Resident at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, New York. The Peabody Museum commissioned a basket from Pat and asked to write an article about her work and the Wasco basket collected by Lewis and Clark in 1805 for cataloging accompanying “Northwest Native Weavers: Honoring Our Heritage.”

Pat’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Highlights in Oregon include The Governor’s Office in Salem, Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, the Littman Gallery at Portland State University, the Museum at Warm Springs, the Portland Art Museum, the University of Oregon, and Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

Her program will show how like to days hot topics of international commerce, diplomatic relations, cultural exchanges and tourism are important to the northwest; it was just as important nearly twelve thousand years ago among the indigenous people who lived along the Columbia River. These civilized and prosperous nations developed a marketplace that, by the 1700’s included trade with Russia, Spain, England, China and America, yet their story is often untold in histories of the region.

Pat Courtney Gold, a Wasco native enrolled in the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon, discusses the rich heritage of cultural and financial commerce conducted up and down the Columbia River. Just as questions of sustainability affect modern commerce, Gold will show how native people’s relationship to the land provided our first environmentally friendly model of commerce.

This free Chautauqua Program will be presented on Saturday, May 10 @ 1:30, Heritage Museum. 112 S. 3rd St., Independence, OR.

For more information, contact Julie Baxter (503)838-4989

TEM Report: Pacific Northwest Historians Conference: April 18, 2008

Where Collector Meets Scholar: The Research Value of the Gerald Williams Collection
Digital History and the Pacific Northwest
Teaching From Local Historical Archives in Spokane

Bringing the collector and the scholar together– how does the archivist fit? what is the archivist’s role? how can the scholar shape the collection through their interaction with the creator? Donna Sinclair asked “where does collector meet scholar?”

Uses for the Williams Collection:

  • Research classes: bring grad/undergrad history classes into the archives (i.e. research based class teaching students how to use these materials on this topic OR research class on how to do research with this as an example). It is our job to encourage and promote this collection within OSU, but also look at how we can share it with other educational institutions throughout the state and nation.
  • HOWEVER, look outside the history department: show other disciplines how this collection can be used in their research (i.e. how do you approach a bio-regional demarcated area as a researcher/student?) Again, promotion/access/use is the primary responsibility of the OSU Archives– now that we have it, we have to use it, we have to share it, we have to encourage others to delve in and swim around in it.

Bill Lang

  • The dynamic between different kinds of historical materials can be quite powerful; it is only when you put the different types together that you see the relationship that is inherent/within the collection/topic.
  • The relationship & connection between text and imagery allows you to think about your research topic in an integrated fashion at the beginning, can change how researchers “do” their work/ think about their project from the conceptual stage, can shape scholarship.

Charles Mutschler

  • It’s the wave of technology!
  • How are we grappling with new “digital age” issues within our professions?
  • What are users asking us to do, to know, to produce?
  • Students (as the next generation of users, creators) are visually oriented. Both because of this and to facilitate this, the world of education is changing radically– we all have to adjust how we think, teach, process, produce, etc.
  • Changes/advances in technology could actually democratize the academy!

Larry Cebula

  • Digital history projects are moving from public to private enterprises: more money, more resources, more studies, more partnerships?
  • We need a centralized resource page for “deep” digital archives, a central reference page, a place where everyone will go, a place where dead links will be updated… How can we use a wiki as a space for these “organic” subject guides? Built by the community of users, community of creators, community of archivists, community of teaching (K-20+)? Give people a space to create, comment, etc., and allow for a “web” of connections to form– it’s the “see also” or “related materials” or “you might also like” page.

Mary Paynton Schaff

  • Time magazine article: people want to upload their own information, the public is important to the new information society, they want (expect?)to be a part of the web/content.

Tamara Georgick

  • Digital project overload … What to consider before launching into a massive program.
  • In addition to hardware, software, money, staff resource questions, she also said that we need to evaluate rigorously. Is it worth putting out there? What is the value? ($, social, educational, historical, aesthetic) Is there an audience?
  • Here’s one that stood out: can you tell the professional resources from the amateur resources? Because yours need to stand out as legitimate primary resources. Really? What does this mean?

Lisa Hagen, Kieran Mahoney, Marcy James, Kelly Kiki

  • Primary Sources in the Classroom: teachers using local history archives in their classroom
  • Tie history to larger picture, see their lives in the context of history, develop curiosity, activate natural questions about history, social engagement.
  • Kinkos = make puzzles out of photos
  • Worksheet = I notice/wonder/infer or predict: observation/question/reflection.
  • Photo Story 3 for Windows = “Create slide shows using your digital photos. With a single click, you can touch-up, crop, or rotate pictures. Add stunning special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to your photo stories. Then, personalize them with titles and captions. Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail. Watch them on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.”

Adventures at OLA/WLA: Hunting for history and sharing the search

It’s been a big week for outreach!

Thursday morning, student worker Christy Toliver and archivist Tiah Edmunson-Morton traveled to Vancouver, WA to share their poster depicting the “Adventures in the Archives: Hunting for History” scavenger hunt from summer 2007.

The hunt was an activity for Adventures in Learning, which “combines stimulating academic and social opportunities in a fun-filled 10-day experience” for “gifted, talented, and creative” 6th and 7th graders who are “interested in fast-paced, challenging opportunities.” Fast-paced and challenging? That’s us!

Last summer, we hosted 10-12 students for a 2-day scavenger hunt in the University Archives and throughout our fantastic campus! On the first day, students searched through historic yearbooks, catalogs, microfilm, and pictures looking for clues centered around the life of Wayne Bagley, an OSC student from the late 1920s. Those clues led them into their second day, an outdoor adventure designed to have them explore the campus, run out their sillies, and connect the past & present.

They’ll be back again this year– and now we’ll be ready with our fancy display!

OSU Archives Presents: Calling all Extension Offices!

This week the Archives staff was invited to talk to a group of staff from the Extension Offices. This post includes links and files from that presentation.

Their site says it best: “The Oregon State University Extension Service engages the people of Oregon with research-based knowledge and education that focus on strengthening communities and economies, sustaining natural resources, and promoting healthy families and individuals.” The collections at OSU Archives document the long and important history of how the Extension offices have impacted their communities; additionally, the individual character of those communities is reflected in the records.

Please click here for all the presentation slides, handouts, and links.