Oregon State UniversitySpecial Collections & Archives Research Center

Welcome. The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center (SCARC), located on the 5th floor of The Valley Library, is home to the university’s unique collections of manuscripts, archives, photographs, and books.

SCARC's collecting priorities include: the History of OSU, the History of Science, Natural Resources, Multiculturalism in Oregon, the OSU Queer Archives, and Hops and Brewing History. We also administer the university's Records Management Program, are home to a robust Oral History Program, and have numerous Rare Books collections.

Finally, through our Digital Production Unit, we pursue a great many initiatives meant to improve access to and preservation of manuscripts, photographs, moving images and audio materials under our care.

We acknowledge that materials in SCARC collections and the language that describes them may be harmful. We are actively working to address our descriptive practices; for more information please see our SCARC Anti-Racist Actions Statement.

For help getting started with your research, please see our Reference page, and for more on what we do, please see our Mission Statement.

University History and Records

Linus Pauling Online

History of Science

Natural Resources

Oregon Multicultural Archives and OSU Queer Archives

Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives

Rare Books

Online Videos



News and Notes


Reference and Research Services

SCARC is open by appointment only. To learn more, please visit the website linked above or email us at scarc@oregonstate.edu.



Speaking of History blog

  • A Baby, Floodwater, and the Christensen River Farm
    In historical and archival work, students are constantly reminded not to underestimate the power of a single historical artifact and the stories it can tell. Even an unsuspecting image of farmland can spur historical intrigue with just a bit of curiosity and detective work. One such example came about while working with the Agricultural Experiment […]
  • New Finding Aids: January – March 2025
    SCARC completed 2 new finding aids January – March 2025; as of the end of March, SCARC has 1153 finding aids in Archives West. These finding aids are available through the Archives West finding aids database, the SCARC website, and the OSU Library discovery system a.k.a. “the catalog.” The links below are to the guides […]
  • “The Living Legacy of Colegio César Chávez” Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion
    On Wednesday, January 22, 2025, the Oregon Historical Society hosted the event “The Living Legacy of Colegio César Chávez Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion” as an accompaniment to the “Colegio César Chávez: The Legacy Lives On / El legado sigue vivo” exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society. Over 230+ community members attended the event! And, […]
  • My first year (and change) at SCARC
    I began working at SCARC in October 2023, during my first term at OSU. Now that I have spent a little over a year as a Student Archivist, I am able to look back and reflect on my experiences so far. When I applied to work at SCARC, I didn’t really know what an archive […]
  • Learning About Margaret Krug Palen
    As a student archivist, one of my primary projects is writing biographies for the more than one thousand individuals listed in the News and Communication Services Records. These individuals are primarily faculty and staff who were associated with Oregon State between 1940 and 2004. Oftentimes, the collection only holds an administrative document related to the […]

Blogs: Speaking of History | Oregon Multicultural Archives | Pauling Blog | Brewstorian | Rare@OSU