Anniversaries and New Beginnings

The Special Collections & Archives Research Center staff. (minus Ruth) November 2011.

Last Friday night a group assembled in the fourth floor rotunda of the Valley Library to celebrate the convergence of two anniversaries: the University Archives turns 50 in 2011, while Special Collections celebrates its 25th birthday.

The University Archives was established in 1961 as a component of what was then called the Kerr Library.  The department was originally located in Gill Coliseum – home to Beaver basketball, among other sports – before moving to the old library location in Kidder Hall.  The first University Archivist was Harriet Moore and her charge was to gather materials of consequence to the history of the institution – variously known as Oregon Agricultural College, Oregon State Agricultural College, Oregon State College and, finally, Oregon State University.  These days, one of the University Archives’ most frequently used photograph collections is “Harriet’s Collection,” a set of some 30,000 images that Moore assembled herself.

In 1966 Harriet Moore retired.  Her replacement, William Schmidt, established a records management program within the department, one of the first such programs at any university nationwide.  In 1972 the University Archives moved again, both physically and organizationally, to the university’s main administration building (in the basement, of course).  The Archives were now part of the Office of Budgets and Planning, and the staff spent a great deal of their time microfilming historic records and administering personnel files.

Organizationally, the Archives returned home to the library in the year 2000, making the physical move out of the basement and to the third floor of the Valley Library in 2003.  Ever since, the department has focused more and more on acquiring manuscript collections and creating a robust digital presence.  Along with the history of the university, two of the Archives’ primary collecting foci are natural resources and multiculturalism in the Pacific Northwest.

As many readers of this blog know, Special Collections at Oregon State University Libraries was created in 1986 with Linus Pauling’s donation of his and his wife’s papers to their undergraduate alma mater.  Under the leadership of it’s first head, Cliff Mead, the department spent the better part of a decade arranging and describing the massive Pauling collection and, in the years since, digitizing components of the collection for consumption on the web.  Using the Pauling Papers as a cornerstone, the department has collected actively in the history of science and technology.  It is also the university’s repository for rare and fine books.  And at least once every week since early March 2008, Special Collections has been publishing this blog.

Now, Special Collections and University Archives are one department: The Special Collections & Archives Research Center.  As this article in Library Journal notes

The merger…will continue over the next several months, with a goal to ‘create one public service point from which all collections within the new department will be made available to the onsite researchers’… The merger will, among other advantages, eliminate the need for researchers to visit separate reading rooms.

Long term, OSU Libraries plans to consolidate the storage, office, and work space, and create a separate classroom space for the new department… Goals for the remainder of 2011 include combining workflows for collections processing, digital collections creation, and instruction and outreach, using teams made up of staff from both previous departments.

Indeed, these are exciting times for us all, but a lot of work lies ahead.

For now though, the blog is in a reflective mood.  In that spirit, please enjoy the photographs below, a sampling of the people, places and events that defined two successful departments for a combined 75 years.

The Special Collections & Archives Research Center staff. (minus Ruth) November 2011.

University Librarian Faye Chadwell speaking at the joint anniversary event, November 2011.

Trevor shows a tour group The Gradual, a 15th century liturgical text, October 2011.

Balz Frei, head of the Linus Pauling Institute, posing in the Pauling office permanent display. October 2010.

Setting up the ‘Common Ground’ Flickr Commons slideshow on the face of Kidder Hall, home of the first university library. October 2009.

Tiah leads the ‘Haunting for History’ tour on the OSU campus, October 2008.

Little Lucia Frumkin holds a Nobel Prize, August 2007.

Moving sets of The Pauling Catalogue into Special Collections, November 2006.

Mary Washington and her husband Warren, a renowned climate scientist, in the Special Collections reading room, June 2006.

Karyle Butcher, Emeritus University Librarian, in the Special Collections reading room, November 2005.

A bust of Linus Pauling presiding over the Special Collections reading room, 2004. (Bust by Erna Weil)

Emeritus Head of Special Collections Cliff Mead with Mary Steckel at the Pauling traveling exhibit opening in Tokyo, Japan, 2004.

John Fenn, 2002 Nobel chemistry laureate, visiting the Special Collections stacks, October 2004.

The University Archives reading room on the third floor of the Valley Library.

Student assistants helping move the University Archives records to the Valley Library, 2003.

Super Karl helping move the University Archives records to the Valley Library, 2003.

A Special Collections student holding a piece of the original Watson & Crick DNA model in the Special Collections display foyer, January 2003.

The University Archives reading room in the basement of Kerr Administration Building, 2002.

Opening Linus Pauling’s personal safe. To the right is Cliff Mead, Emeritus Head of Special Collections. Ca. 1996.

Student employees working in the original Special Collections reading room, ca. 1996.

Lawrence A. Landis in 1995. Larry has served as University Archivist since 1996 and is now the Director of the Special Collections & Archives Research Center.

Another view of the mink laboratory disaster recovery.

Conducting disaster recovery at an OSU mink research laboratory that was vandalized in June 1991.

Student workers in the original Special Collections reading room, ca. late 1980s.

Archives staff member Anne Merydith-Wolf in the basement store room, Administration Building, ca. 1980.

Linus and Ava Helen Pauling in the University Archives reading room, May 1980.

A University Archives student microfilming records, ca. 1970s.

Transcribing an oral history interview with a typewriter (!), ca. 1979.

An early example of moveable shelving in the University Archives, ca. 1979.

Students processing a collection, ca. 1979.

University Archivist Rolf Swensen and staff member Anne Merydith-Wolf working in the basement of the Administration Building, ca. 1979.

Sally Wilson on her birthday, 1977.

University Archivist Sally Wilson working at a microfilm cabinet, ca. 1974.

Homecoming keepsake, ca. 1960s.

William F. Schmidt, the second University Archivist, with two students, 1966.

Harriet Moore, the first University Archivist, holding a historic copy of the student newspaper, 1965.

University President George Peavy, seated in the McDonald Room, 1934.

Lucy M. Lewis assisting a patron in the McDonald Room,1934. Lewis was University Librarian from 1920-1945. During her tenure the library, among other advancements, made the switch from Dewey Decimal classification to the Library of Congress schema.

Readers in the McDonald Rare Books Room, predecessor to Special Collections, 1934.