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The Valley Library
44°33′54″N 123°16′34″W / 44.56511°N 123.2760°W / 44.56511; -123.2760
Location	Corvallis, Oregon
Established	1963
Collection
Size	1.4+ million volumes, 14,000 serials, 500,000+ maps and government documents
Other information
Website	http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/

The Valley Library is the primary library of Oregon State University and is located at the school's main campus in Corvallis in the U.S. state of Oregon. The library stores more than 1.4 million volumes, 14,000 serials, and more than 500,000 maps and government documents. The current building opened in 1963 as the Kerr Library and was expanded and renamed in 1999 as The Valley Library. The library is named for philanthropist F. Wayne Valley, who played football for Oregon State. The six-story building is in a modern neoclassical style with a red-brick exterior highlighted by white sections on the top and on the eastern side. The eastern side is a white-faced rotunda that includes a two-story atrium on the main floor.

History

Oregon Agricultural College opened a new library in 1918, which was remodeled on several occasions, with a new wing added in 1941. Previously the library had been housed on the second floor of the college's administration building. The 1918 building was located on the southeast corner of Campus Way and Waldo Place. A mural painted by J. Leo Fairbanks was added to the main reading room in 1929 as a gift from the school's class of 1925. The mural was titled Recorded Information and was the second mural in that room by Fairbanks, who was the longtime head of the school's art department.

Beginning in 1932, Mary J. L. McDonald made the then largest donation of books to the library when she donated volumes worth just over $10,000. She donated a total of over 1,000 items that included a complete works of Abraham Lincoln valued at $4,800. In 1936, the Works Progress Administration gave a decorative archway to the library to be installed over the south entrance to the building. The library received a bequest of about 5,500 volumes valued at about $15,000 in December 1947 from William H. Galvani's estate. This was again the largest donation to the library up to that time.

Construction on the new wing of the library started in 1940 and was designed by John V. Bennes. In May 1960, the then Oregon State College was advanced $19,000 by the federal government to plan for a new $2,170,000 building. The new building was designed by architects Hamlin & Martin, and the cost rose to $2.4 million by the time the school accepted bids on the project in April 1962. Ground was broken on the project on May 1, 1962, with Shields Construction Company as the general contractor for the project. The new building would double the size of Oregon State's library.

Completed in 1963, the new library was built on Jefferson Street, its present location, and named as the William Jasper Kerr Library. At that time the building was four stories tall, but the school planned for an expansion by placing the slabs to be used for two new floors on the roof during the original construction. Oregon State began construction in the Fall of 1970 to add these new floors, with completion coming in the Fall of 1971. The old library building was remodeled and became Kidder Hall, named in honor of former librarian Ida Mae Kidder.

In 1999, the building was re-named The Valley Library after expansion and renovations. Renovations took three years and cost $47 million to complete. That year the library was selected by The Library Journal as the Library of the Year.

Librarians at Valley Library began using text messaging in March 2010 to communicate with some library patrons, and earlier started to loan out Amazon's Kindle reader. In April, the school started allowing students to use the library 24-hours-a-day from Sunday through Thursday to test whether there was enough demand to allow 24-hour access on a permanent basis. The program was sponsored by the Associated Students of Oregon State University and paid for by university technology funds, and was due in part to the closure of some computer labs that had been 24-hour study areas.

Collections

• History of Atomic Energy Collection
• McDonald Collection
• Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers
• The University Archives
• Northwest Art Collection - exhibits 120 artworks by contemporary artists in Northwest.

References

1. "The Valley Library". Retrieved 2007-12-08.
2. ^ "OSC Library Gains Funds". The Oregonian. Associated Press. May 11, 1960. p. 7.
3. ^ "Librarian Ends Long Service". The Oregonian. January 14, 1945. p. 11.
4. ^ "Mural Work Dedicated". The Oregonian. June 2, 1929. p. 18.
5. ^ "Oregon State Gets Rare Lincoln Set". The Oregonian. February 11, 1934. p. 38.
6. "Art Work Given College by WPA". The Oregonian. October 11, 1936. p. 8.
7. ^ "$15,000 Value Set on Gift". The Oregonian. December 14, 1947. p. 20.
8. "Bidding Called On O.S.C. Job". The Oregonian. July 3, 1940. p. 11.
9. "Adequate Married Students' Housing Urged By Education Board". The Oregonian. March 14, 1962. p. 9.
10. ^ "OSU Library Ground Broken". The Oregonian. Associated Press. May 4, 1962. p. 20.
11. "OSU Library Bids Entered". The Oregonian. April 16, 1962. p. 16.
12. Edmonston, Jr., George P. “A Steady Hand” Back in the Day. Oregon Stater, Spring 2008. Vol. 93, No. 2. p. 40.
13. ^ "Building Construction". OSU Archives. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
14. "OSU Project Bids Listed". The Oregonian. September 17, 1964. p. 26.
15. ^ Khanna, Roma. “OSU’s new library lets students kick back, plug in”, The Oregonian, May 28, 1999.
16. "OSU librarian: ?4U". OregonLive. The Associated Press. March 25, 2010. Retrieved 25 March 2010.
17. ^ Hatch, Cheryl (April 19, 2010). "Valley Library pulls an all-nighter". Gazette-Times. Corvallis, OR. Retrieved 21 April 2010.

External links

• The Valley Library Collection
• Photographs of the Valley Library on the Oregon State University Archives Flickr page

• University and college academic libraries in the United States
• Libraries in Oregon
• Oregon State University
• School buildings in Oregon