Processing the Olympia Brewery Library Collection

Post contributed by Jalen Todd, SCARC Student Archivist

Every day is leg day when you work in the archives. Forget hitting the gym and lifting weights, I’ll probably have arms capable of wrestling a bear by the time I’m done here. Its actually amazing how heavy a box of magazines can get. But honestly, it’s the stuff in the box that’s interesting. I started cataloging the Olympia Brewery Library collection a few months before writing this. It’s a hodge-podge of periodicals, beer can collector’s mags, and lab communications. The marginalia is sparse but interesting. It feels like a treasure hunt, trying to find the notes these people left their coworkers in the brewery. There’s a whole story inside those notes.

The coolest thing in there—in my humble opinion—is a run of Scandinavian brewer’s journals, written in Danish. I don’t speak Danish, but I can do a mean Google translate search, but it begs the question: which one of those Olympia Brewers read Danish? It’s random questions like this that makes working here really enjoyable. That and my potential future as a bear wrestler.