Last Saturday I set out on my first Beers Made By Walking trek, which I was super excited about even though drizzle (in Oregon that translates to torrential rain) was forecast.

For those who don’t know, Beers Made By Walking was founded by Eric Steen in Colorado, and though a lot of the hikes moved to the west coast when he did, a quick look through their website will give you a good idea of the variety of themes and places they’ve done hikes/walks. They partner with local brewers to make beers with ingredients either gathered or informed/inspired by the walks; they also partner with local agencies that focus on similar concerns and have somewhat similar audiences. Locally, this has included the Forest Park Conservancy in PDX, McKenzie River Trust in Eugene, and Greenbelt Land Trust in Corvallis.

Read the rest on The Brewstorian!

On April 20-22, 2016 REFORMA OR participated in the 2016 Oregon Library Association conference in Bend, OR! Chapter members presented a pre-conference workshop titled “¡Bienvenidos a la biblioteca!: Outreach and Engagement with Latino and Spanish Speaking Populations in Your Communities” and staffed a table to raise awareness about the chapter.

Want the whole story? Read the rest on the OMA blog!

Peter Pauling with his parents, ca. 1950s.

“This tub moves steadily but slowly along.” So wrote Peter Pauling in a letter to his mother, Ava Helen Pauling, riding somewhere in the Atlantic in the hull of a cargo ship that had been built in 1926. “It took us two and a half days to reach the open sea.”

Read the rest of Peter Pauling: The Race that Wasn’t, 1952.

On May 17, 2016 six OSU students shared their stories of being FIRST. At OSU, this past fall term, 27% of students self-identified as being “first”, which most commonly means a first generation college attendee. While being “first” can have a variety of meanings, students who are “first” share many things in common as revealed through the student panel.

Want to read more? The full story is on the Oregon Multicultural Archives blog!

Plageman as it appeared in 1936.

OSU Alum Chris Russell wrote this lovely piece for us on the 80th anniversary of the construction of Plageman Hall. For those of you who aren’t from here, didn’t go to school here, or just don’t mind the names of the buildings, this building might be more familiar as “Student Health.”

Erna Plageman

Everyone is familiar with the saying that you can’t value your health fully until you lose it, and it’s also true that you can’t value something like the Student Health Services until you truly need it. Today students automatically head to Plageman building whenever they have a health problem or concern, and students have done thus for years ever since Plageman was constructed in 1936. Plageman was actually constructed during a slow building period in OSU history when only one other building was raised during a 15-year span. Constructed as a Public Works Administration project, Plageman was built with a $20,000 grant and a $80,000 loan.

Plageman building under construction in 1936.

The building was originally just called the Student Health Services building or frequently referred to simply as the infirmary. Prior to the name being placed on a building, it is likely that many students would have recognized the name as OSU’s assistant director of Health Services, Erna Plageman, who served in that post from 1950-1964. Even before that position, Plageman had helped create the Student Health Services organization in 1929 after moving to Oregon from Michigan where she worked at the University of Michigan as a Staff Nurse and later as a member of the Michigan Health Service Staff. Plageman served as a supervising nurse for OSU from 1929-1942/43, following that she became the general supervisor for Student Health Services until 1950.

The infirmary didn’t have a true name until the year of 1969/70 when it adopted the name of it’s former assistant director, a name that it has held to this day. This year marks the 80th year since Student Health Services had their building constructed and 80 years of assisting students. From 1936 to 2016 Plageman has stood as the place where students can turn to for help; with 42, 684 student encounters in the year of 2013-2014 alone, the scale and scope of Student Health Services and Plageman has grown tremendously and seems a fitting homage to a woman who served the university and helped students for over 30 years.

Sources Used:

• http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/omeka/items/show/7201
• http://www.osualum.com/s/359/file_lib/1/48/56end_classnotes_201404_635319645170180928.pdf
• http://studenthealth.oregonstate.edu/sites/studenthealth.oregonstate.edu/files/main/docs/annual_report_2013_2014.pdf
• http://oregondigital.org/catalog/oregondigital:df70d298w
• http://oregondigital.org/catalog/oregondigital:df70d2995
• Oregon State Yearbooks: 1937
• Oregon State Monthly: July, 1929
• Oregon State General Catalog: 1930-1931, 1942-1943, 1943-1944, 1949-1950, 1950-1951, 1951-1952, 1962-1963, 1967-1968, 1969-1970.

The Pauling family in 1946. From left: Peter, Ava Helen, Linus, Crellin, Linda and Linus Jr.

Part 2 of 9 in the life story of Peter Pauling is now live on the Pauling blog.

In April 1945, while German forces were surrendering to the Allies in Europe, Peter Pauling was completing his education at Flintridge Prep and moving on to McKinley Junior High, where he would enter the 10th grade. He continued to do well in most subjects, with the exception of a few poor marks in Latin. Now fourteen years of age, Peter went outside of the Pauling family home in Pasadena one day to discover a message painted on their garage door; it read: “AMERICANS DIE BUT WE LOVE JAPS. JAPS WORK HERE, PAULING.” Peter quickly called for his parents, who surmised that the hate message had been written by misguided individuals angered by Ava Helen’s work with the American Civil Liberties Union to prevent the internment of many Japanese-American citizens during the war.

Click over to the Pauling Blog to read the rest!

All of the Ralph Miller Show episodes that we have in our collections (with the exception of one that missed and one that is broken) have been digitized and are now available online!

The easiest way to get a sense of what has been done is to look at the “Ralph Miller Show” subhead under the “Basketball” header on this page: http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/osuhistory-videos.html

• All the videos have been tagged, so patrons can access the entire run through this link: https://media.oregonstate.edu/tag/tagid/ralph%20miller%20show
• Or go directly to a specific season through, for example a link like this: https://media.oregonstate.edu/tag/tagid/ralph%20miller%20show%20season%201

In every episode of the show, Miller and his co-host reviewed the previous weeks games and previewed what was coming next. Every episode usually also includes two interviews, most often with current players but sometimes with assistant coaches as well. From season to season, pre-produced features were also included in each episode: behind the scenes stories of the basketball program, discussions of Miller coaching philosophies, historical reviews of each of Miller’s seasons as head coach, and academic profile packages put together by OSU News and Communications. All of this was created during what was arguably the richest era in the history of OSU basketball.

Almost all of these films are on U-matic tapes, so kudos to Brian Davis a great thank you for unlocking them!

In her last post, SCARC intern and History of Science graduate student Elizabeth Maureen Nielsen referred to Maxwell’s mathematical solutions for many of the theoretical problems facing mid-nineteenth century physics.

In her latest post, Nielsen continues this exploration, looking at one of the most frequently recurring problems in physics was the problem of light, and how light travels. Can light – or sound, or any other ephemeral wave – travel in a vacuum? Can it travel through space?

Read more about Maxwell, Michelson, and Morley at http://osurarebooks.tumblr.com/post/144273316091/maxwell-michelson-and-morley.

Baseball great Jackie Robinson, speaking at an Urban League of Portland meeting, 1955. Edwin C. Berry, Director of the Urban League, is seated second from left.

Following is a list of 5 new or updated finding aids for SCARC collections that were finalized during April 2016. All are available through the Archives West finding aids database, our new Archon finding aids interface, and the OSUL catalog.

These guides include:

• 1 guide for a new collection received in 2015
• 1 guide for a collection that has been separated from the Gerald W. Williams Collection and described as a stand-alone collection
• 1 guide that has been updated to incorporate several additions to the collection
• 2 guides for collections that previously has minimal information available online

As of April 29, 2016, the OSU Special Collections and Archives Research Center has 849 finding aids in Archives West.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the preparation and review of these new guides – this work is definitely a group endeavor.

New collection received in 2015:

Asian Family Center Oral History Collection, 2014-2015 (OH 30)

This collection consists of 11 interviews conducted with board and staff members of the Asian Family Center (AFC), one of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization’s five primary locations in Portland, Oregon.  The Asian Family Center exists to serve the needs of the Portland area’s growing Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Documented within the collection are descriptions of the interviewees’ job duties and responsibilities; their thoughts on the value and future of the center; AFC history, programs, and services; and the interviewees’ personal stories regarding their immigration to the United States.

Collection separated from the Gerald W. Williams Collection:

Gerald W. Williams Collection on the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-2012 (MSS CCC)

This collection includes publications, photographs, newspaper clippings, maps, architectural drawings, artifacts, DVDs, sound recordings, and VHS videotapes documenting various Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps and enrollees in Oregon and other states. These materials were acquired by U.S. Forest Service Historian Gerald W. Williams.

Updated finding aid to incorporate several additions to the collection: 

Siletz News, 2007-2016 (MSS SiletzNews)

This monthly newspaper is published by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.  This collection consists of both paper and electronic copies; electronic copies are available online.  The newspaper includes information on tribal programs, events, and members; health news from the tribal clinic; and details of activities at the Chinook Winds Casino.  Of special note are notices of life events of tribal members such as birthdays, weddings, and graduations.  The newspaper includes numerous color photographs of programs, events, and members.

Full guides for collections that previously had minimal information available online:

Soviet Propaganda Posters Collection, 1929-1931 (MSS Soviet)

The 18 propaganda posters that comprise this collection were printed in the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1931.  The posters promote industrial productivity, literacy, sanitation and hygiene, and advance anti-religious and temperance messages.  The collection has been described by Williams Husband, a professor of Russian history in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion. 

Urban League or Portland Records, 1910-2014 (MSS UrbanLeague)

These records document the administration and programs of the League from its founding in Portland, Oregon, in 1945.  The collection reflects the League’s outreach to the community through various programs and activities, fund-raising, interaction with the National Urban League, and African American life in Portland.  The collection includes extensive paper records as well as visual documentation in the form of 6200 photographs, 125 videotapes, and 30 sound recordings.

All of the football media guides in our archival collections are now available in Oregon Digital!

There are 78 total objects; for some guides there is a separate personnel summary; spring football guides are available for some years also. The guides span from 1939 to 2015 and you can see all of them here: http://oregondigital.org/sets/osu-sports-media-guides.

Expand the “Topic” facet to limit to the football guides. Women’s basketball is next!