Oregon State UniversitySpecial Collections & Archives Research Center

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Infographic touting the economic benefits of beer, 1938.
Infographic touting the economic benefits of beer, 1938.
Beer and brewing in America; an economic study, by Warren M. Persons. (Click to enlarge)

Contribute to OHBA

What types of materials are we looking for?

Archivists collect unique, historic, or rare items of enduring value deemed worthy of long-term preservation. We also look to those in and related to the brewing industry in Oregon to help us save items that will tell their stories to future generations. Those could be items that document the past, but also items that convey the current brewing scene to someone in the future.

Any list would be incomplete, but examples include:

  • Ephemeral: beer lists, menus, coasters, posters, brochures, event -announcements, or advertisements.
  • Operational: business records, marketing materials, press releases, recipes, brew sheets, or brewing logs.
  • People: biographical information, resumes, blogs posts, interviews, or brewing manifestos.
  • Pictures and videos: hop yards and harvesting, brewing practices, breweries, craft brewing industry pioneers, or other important events.
  • Published materials: unique or rare trade periodicals, reference books, industry journals, and newspaper or magazine articles.

A broad strategy for growing OHBA allows us to acquire collections from a variety of donors, actively collect both ephemeral and digital materials currently produced the community, digitize collections we don't own, provide online access to digitized content in newspapers, collect secondary literature to support scholarship in the form of rare or historic books and historic industry journals, and conduct oral histories. Current technologies allow us to explore a "post custodial" approach to archiving, which means we no longer have to physically possess or own items to provide access to the informational content. Both access and preservation are integral to this project and the digitization of materials in a variety of repositories and locations is a core component.

Just as past movements inspire us, there is always a new crop of people to learn from the experiences we document. At heart this is a community archiving project: we have the opportunity to work with the people who changed the face of an industry and set in motion a movement. We look forward to the adventure of discovering new partners, collections, and stories.

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