Welcome to the OSU Libraries News and Events page!

Guin Library Supports Marine Science Day

Guin Library generously helped prepare for Marine Science Day by helping the planning committee and coordinating the dispersal of MSD posters and bookmarks through library couriers: Summit, Lincoln County Library, and the Lincoln County School District. This innovative idea saved the committee hundreds of dollars!

Not only was Guin instrumental in providing this behind-the-scenes assistance, the library also worked to ensure attendees of Marine Science Day felt welcome by adding bilingual English/Spanish signage for their self-checkout, children’s puzzles, and games collections.
The library had around 115 visitors during MSD and plenty of places for them to enjoy with Reading Nooks, book displays, a new children’s play area, and much more.

Guin Library Improves Course Reserves

Guin Library has been hard at work to improve the lives of OSU students by adding new editions, extra copies of popular titles, and adding laminated field ID guides! These great improvements emerged from a collaboration between Guin and Valley librarians.

Guin Library Improves Course Reserves

Guin Library has been hard at work to improve the lives of OSU students by adding new editions, extra copies of popular titles, and adding laminated field ID guides! These great improvements emerged from a collaboration between Guin and Valley librarians.

Making the Unseen Visible, Press Authors Visit SCARC

Professor of History, Jacob Hamblin and History Senior Instructor, Linda Richards led a conversation on their new book Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure on Wednesday, May 15th.

Hamblin and Richards implored participants to engage with original primary sources on radiation exposure from the nuclear history collections in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center Reading Room, located in the fifth floor of the Valley Library.

Envisioning an OSU Cascades Library Redesign

Honors College students in Braden Engel’s Buildings of Bend seminar designed a new campus library! 

They used both thematic design elements and functional considerations to craft a building that can accommodate the myriad experiences students would look for in a full-scale university library. 


Pictures of this fascinating redesign can be found on the OSU Cascades Library Instagram post.

Envisioning an OSU Cascades Library Redesign

Honors College students in Braden Engel’s Buildings of Bend seminar designed a new campus library! 

They used both thematic design elements and functional considerations to craft a building that can accommodate the myriad experiences students would look for in a full-scale university library. 


Pictures of this fascinating redesign can be found on the OSU Cascades Library Instagram post.

Game Nite, a Classic Valley Library Event

Game Nite has a proven track record of quality engagement and community building at the Valley Library. Spring term Game Nite featured many of the classic activities that this event has been known for such as a Smash Bros tournament and video game room, crafting, and board games from the Valley Library’s collection!

While these board games can be borrowed (for up to a week) anytime, there’s a magic to sharing a board game in the library with friends, family, and soon-to-be friends from around the OSU community. This Game Nite featured the first ever puzzle race! Teams gathered together to speedily put together their book themed puzzles for a special prize.

In partnership with Hui o Hawai’i, the Valley Library offered free Crafternoon crafting of glow-in-the-dark leis!

If you haven’t been to a Game Nite before, you’ll have to join this wonderful community soon.

Reflecting on Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day 2024 at the Valley Library was a great success, with 234 attendees comprised of families, students, groups, and community members. Folks stopped to craft and engage with the library’s display of borrowable graphic novels! Sasquatch made an appearance to promote the event around the library. Corvallis-Benton County Public Library tabled with resources and button-making. The OSU Pride Center provided zines, resource handouts, and swag. Matt’s Cavalcade of Comics generously donated comics for all to enjoy. With the momentum from this year’s Free Comic Book Day, it’s safe to say that the library and community are looking forward to this annual activity for many years to come.

Albina Music Trust Community Archive Open House

This May, Albina Music Trust and OSU’s Special Collections Archives and Records Center presented an afternoon of historic regional arts activation. The OSU community joined in this celebration the recent release of a community archive documenting the artistic and cultural legacy of Portland’s historically Black neighborhood of Albina, many years in the making.

This was a self-guided event. Attendees engaged with this rich digital repository that includes photography, film, audio, and assorted ephemera through archive kiosks and listening stations at their own pace. Albina Music Trust provided a curated selection of regional vinyl records from their record label for guests to set on the turntable. Archivists and OSU faculty were on hand to answer questions about Albina’s past, present, and future and the emergent practice of operating a community archive.

OSU Press Book Wins Burroughs Medal

Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher by Marina Richie has received the 2024 Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. 

Created in 1926, the John Burroughs Medal is awarded annually to the year’s most distinguished book of nature writing. This is the third Burroughs Medal win for an Oregon State University Press title which OSU Press director Tom Booth says is unprecedented for a university press. Past Burroughs medalists include Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Roger Tory Peterson, Barry Lopez, and Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, OSU Press, 2003).

“Richie’s writing is fluid, her curiosity infectious, and her pursuit of the kingfishers admirable,” said one of the Burrough Medal jurors. “Many people delight in seeing and hearing kingfishers, and now, with this title, they can enjoy these charismatic birds on a deeper level than ever before.”

Halcyon Journey combines science, field observation, and storytelling to uncover the secret lives of belted kingfishers. Nesting kingfishers that Richie watched for seven years along Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Montana, set her on a journey to better understand the elusive bird.

“When I wrote Halcyon Journey, my hope was to shine a light on this jay-sized bird of the hover and headfirst dive,” said Richie, who lives in Bend, Oregon. “To receive the Burroughs Medal is the greatest of honors. I’d love to tell every kingfisher—you won.” 

Generous support from the John & Shirley Byrne OSU Library Support Endowment Fund helps make the publication of notable OSU Press books about the natural world possible. To learn more contact director, Tom Booth, at thomas.booth@oregonstate.edu

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