Collections
Named special collections: bodies of work the Library accepts whole, keeps intact, and describes in a published finding aid.
Most of the Library is organized by subject: the cases, the money, the states. A named special collection is organized the other way round — by the person or organization whose work it is. The Library takes the body of work as a whole rather than pulling out the useful pieces, keeps the creator's own arrangement, credits the creator on every page, and publishes a finding aid: the map of what a collection holds and how to use it.
Collections are described before they are complete. A finding aid that says plainly what is here, what is elsewhere, and what has not been looked at yet is more useful to a researcher than a polished page that hides the gaps.
In the Library now
Named special collection · preview
The Zybach Collection
The life's work of Dr. Bob Zybach: Oregon forest history, oral history and historical ecology
8 series, 2 of them described item by item · the Soap Creek Valley oral histories (1989–2009), the 1999 M.A.I.S. thesis, the 1989 Auto Tour, and the Elliott State Forest oral histories, field trips and videos (2017–2024). Bob Zybach is the Library’s Reference Librarian.
How the Library treats a collection
The terms are the same for every collection the Library accepts. They are written down so a creator can read them before deciding, and so a reader knows what a page is claiming.
- Rights are stated, not assumed. The Library does not call a collection's rights settled until the paper says so. For the Zybach Collection, a working edition published with the creator's participation while rights and consultation reviews continue, the rights are stated series by series on its rights page, which also says how to ask for a change or a removal. The Library links to the creator's own copies throughout.
- The creator's arrangement stands. Series, titles, chapter names and citation strings are the creator's. The Library adds apparatus — indexes, maps, a permanent link for every printed page, cross-links — and says so.
- Originals stay where they are until the paperwork exists. Until a deed of gift is signed, the Library links to the creator's own hosted copies rather than mirroring them.
- Provenance travels with every item. Who made it, when, where it came from, and what the Library did to it.
- Nothing private. Personal, financial and medical material is excluded before description begins, and exclusion is never deletion — the creator's own files are untouched.
- Reversible. A collection that a creator declines comes down, and the public site is unchanged.
Related: Collection development policy · Rights and permissions · How to cite the Library · Corrections
