Using Our Collections

Phone:	(541) 737-2075
Fax:	(541) 737-8674
Email:	scarc@oregonstate.edu

Reading Room Guidelines

The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center is committed to facilitating the work of scholarly researchers. In order to protect and provide access to rare and valuable materials, SCARC requires all visitors to abide by rules and regulations of a more stringent nature than those of the general library. Patrons are required annually to complete a researcher registration form and provide picture identification upon each visit. Permission to examine SCARC materials will be granted upon completion of the registration form, and agreement to abide by the following rules and policies governing use of materials. Such permissions are granted subject to restrictions placed on the materials by the donors, depositors, SCARC staff, and/or related parties. For more information, please see our Guide to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center.

Use of Materials

A researcher is responsible for the safeguarding of any materials made available to him/her in SCARC Reading Room. Researchers will comply with the following guidelines or will be asked to leave the SCARC area.

1. No food or drink or is allowed in the reading room.
2. All personal items, excluding writing utensils, notepaper, laptops, and cameras, must be placed in the coat room or personal locker for security purposes. The SCARC staff is not responsible for the security of your personal property.
3. All cell phones and other electronic devices must be silenced while in SCARC.
4. Only pencils are permitted within SCARC.
5. Adhesives including glue, tape, and post-it notes are prohibited in the reading room.
6. Materials may not be marked, folded, or handled in any way likely to damage them.
7. No more than one book or archival box may be accessed at a time.
8. Protective gloves must be worn when examining photographic collections.
9. No research materials may be removed from the reading room.
10. All unbound materials (papers within folders and folders within boxes) must remain in the exact order received.
11. Flash photography of SCARC materials is not allowed.

Access to Audio-Visual Materials

Due to the rare and fragile nature of many of these materials, audiovisual materials in SCARC’s holdings are accessible only as digital copies. Our preservation policies do not allow us to view a reel or tape before digitizing it. In some cases, the department may need to contract with a third-party vendor for digitization services, with the associated costs assumed by the requester. Researchers interested in accessing audio-visual materials from SCARC’s collections must contact SCARC by email at scarc@oregonstate.edu. The digitization process could take at least one month, depending on the capacity of our Digital Production Unit, scale of the request, and existing digitization queue. Some formats, or materials with preservation issues, may take longer than one month, may incur additional fees, or may be too fragile to digitize at all. Please reach out to us as soon as possible to coordinate access to materials of interest to you.

Works Cited / Rules for Citations

When citing materials that you have used in your work, please use the following format, replacing the information in brackets.

"Courtesy [Full name of Collection], Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Libraries, Series [when applicable] Box [Box #]"

Example: "Courtesy Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Libraries, Peace Box 6.001"