About Us

Ava Helen and Linus Pauling, 1964

The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections, a component of the Special Collections & Archives Research Center, is located on the fifth floor of OSU’s Valley Library and is home to more than twenty archival collections, most of which focus on the history of science and technology in the twentieth century.

The largest and most important of these collections is the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, donated by OSU alum Dr. Linus Pauling in 1986 and consisting of over 500,000 items. The collection includes Linus and Ava Helen’s manuscripts, correspondence, awards, research notebooks, personal libraries, photograph collections and much more.

The Pauling Papers are described in a six-volume published catalog and are gradually being thematically digitized for consumption on the web.  The major websites that we have published over the years are:

• Linus Pauling Research Notebooks (2002)
• Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA (2003, re-released 2009)
• Linus Pauling Awards, Honors and Medals (2004, re-released 2011)
• Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond (2004, re-released 2008 )
• It’s in the Blood: A Documentary History of Linus Pauling, Hemoglobin and Sickle Cell Anemia (2005, re-released 2008 )
• Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement (2007)
• Special Events — a growing collection of digitized videos from a wide-variety of occasions. (Begun in 2008 )
• The Pauling Student Learning Curriculum — a resource for both teachers and students of history and science. (2008 )
• Linus Pauling Day-by-Day — currently documenting every day of Pauling’s life and work from 1930-1967. (2010)
• The Pauling Chronology — the most detailed overview of Linus Pauling’s ancestry, life and work available on the web. (2009; en español, 2010)
• The Scientific War Work of Linus C. Pauling (2010)

We have been the subject of a few news features over the years, and several of our projects have been reviewed as well. For links to some of the write-ups that are available online, please check out our Awards and Reviews page.

A seven-part behind-the-scenes video tour of our facility, which provides glimpses of many Pauling artifacts that are rarely seen, is available here.

Please note that the Pauling Blog is not responsible for content hosted by the various websites to which it is linked.  The views and opinions posted on the Pauling Blog do not necessarily represent the official policies of Oregon State University or its affiliate organizations.

We can be reached at special[dot]collections[at]oregonstate[dot]edu