Tag Archives: digital resources

Three New SCARC Finding Aids Added in December 2019

The three new collections added were received by SCARC in 2015 and are now available to researchers through the Archon finding aid database. Additionally, two out of these three new collections are electronic, as they were born-digital and digitized, representing 38.4 Gigabytes of new archival material. The addition of these finding aids brings the total number of collections available through the Special Collections and Archives Research Center to 1,026 as of January 1, 2020.

Read more about these new collections below:


Raul Peña Collection, 1968-2005 (MSS Peña)

The Raul Peña Collection consists of Peña’s personal scrapbook and a compilation of video-recorded news stories depicting the struggles of migrant farm workers in Oregon during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Peña served in the U.S. Army and Oregon Army National Guard in the 1970s and 1980s, and advocated for migrant worker rights through his work for the Bureau of Labor and Industries in the late 1980s and 1990s.  This collection consists of digitized versions of the scrapbook and video content.

Roy Philippi and Beth Miller Philippi Scrapbooks, 1915-1943 (MSS Philippi)

The Roy Philippi and Beth Miller Philippi Scrapbooks were assembled by Oregon Agricultural College student Roy Philippi and his daughter-in-law, Beth Miller Philippi, herself an alumna of Oregon State College. The scrapbooks document student life at Oregon State College during World War I and the beginning of World War II, primarily through candid snapshots and newspaper clippings.

The Beth Miller Philippi scrapbook is in fragile condition and a digital surrogate should be consulted as a primary source of access. This surrogate is available in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center Reading Room, or remotely upon request.  The collection includes 232 photographs.

Oregon State University Libraries and Press Oral History Collection, 2018-2019 (OH 041)

The Oregon State University Libraries and Press (OSULP) Oral History Collection primarily consists of audio-recorded interviews conducted with current employees of the OSU Libraries and the OSU Press, all of which were structured using a set script of interview questions. A smaller subset of the collection is comprised of more individually tailored interviews with former employees of the OSU Libraries. Members of each OSULP branch and department are represented in the collection, which includes interviews with library faculty, staff and student workers. Online access to the interviews, as well as a promotional video, is provided through a dedicated project homepage.  The collection includes 50 oral history interviews.

A New Online Home for SCARC

It is with great pleasure that we announce the official launch of our new department website!  Please find it at http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu and be sure to update your bookmarks away from the old University Archives and Special Collections sites, which will no longer be maintained.

Access to Collections

A project some ten months in the making, the new SCARC website is chock full of new features.  Archival materials naturally lie at the heart of what we do and this new site presents at least some mention of all 1,033 (and growing) collections currently under the stewardship of our merged department.  And while full description is not yet available for all of that material, we have created at least collection-level EAD records for more than 900 of them.

An example of the alphabetical sort available for all of our collections.

In addition, all of the SCARC collections are accessible in multiple ways.  There’s the big list of everything as well as the alphabetical view, with easy access to abstracts and other basic information about a given collection. In addition, our materials are also sortable by theme (university history, natural resources, multicultural archives, history of science and local history) and by the genre(s) of materials held within a specific collection (photographs, sound recordings and oral histories, videos and books).

Digital Resources

Over the years, SCARC has placed great emphasis on developing a robust set of online exhibits and digital libraries, and with the new department website, this huge batch of content is now more accessible than ever.  As with one view of our finding aids, SCARC’s digital resources are presented according to collection development theme.  Within this context, users will find a neatly organized treasure trove of materials available 24/7.  Be it the mammoth Best of OSU Archives digital library or our groundbreaking Flickr Commons presence, our massive Linus Pauling Online portal or the rapidly growing Oregon Multicultural Archives digitization program, the Digital Resources component of our work is now on full display. (we have a bunch of online videos too!)

A glimpse of our new University History Digital Resources portal.

And So Much More…

From our homepage you’ll quickly gain a sense of what we do and what’s new – be it our most recent accessions or latest outreach activities, as reported from various points across our social media hub. You’ll also find quick links to more information on some of our specialty work – the Records Management program perhaps or maybe our Rare Books. Nuts and bolts information is easy to find too, from forms to fees to people who are here to help.  Need assistance getting started with your research? We’ve got tutorials and learning curricula for that.  Just need to ask a question?  Fill out our online form and we’ll get back to you soon.

The SCARC website represents a big step forward for us a merged unit.  Over the coming weeks and months, we will be working to refine its effectiveness and add more and more content.  As the process plays out, please don’t hesitate to let us know what you think.  We’ll look forward to hearing from you!

E.E. Wilson, aka “the bicycle guy.” He shows up a lot on our new website.