Message from the Dean

During the Thanksgiving break, I continued a tradition I started last year: planting bulbs in the garden beds outside my window. As I look forward to crocuses and tulips blooming in 2026, I’m reminded of the many positive things underway in the WSU Libraries.

Construction of Cougar Commons is moving forward, creating new spaces for collaboration and learning. Demolition and renovation work start this week to remove outdated cabinets, empty bookshelves (we moved almost 9,800 volumes from the physical reference collection), patch the carpet, and paint group study rooms. I am grateful to Erica England, our first-year experience librarian who is serving as our first Cougar Commons coordinator. She has done an excellent job reaching out to and collaborating with our partners, the WSU Undergraduate Writing Center and the Academic Success and Career Center.

At the same time, we are strengthening our commitment to faculty publishing. Beginning in January, our renewed agreement with Wiley will significantly increase waived article processing charges (APCs). Thanks to the work of Joel Cummings, WSU Libraries’ head of collection development, the number of waivers for Wiley gold open access (OA) journals will grow from 19 to 45, and we will also have 116 APC waivers for Wiley hybrid journals. (These are subscription journals that publish some OA articles.) Last year, the 19 Wiley gold OA journal APCs were fully used by May, so this expanded coverage will help extend the impact of WSU research. Our Elsevier APC waivers, a component of our most expensive and highly used package of journals, will also increase from 187 to 193.

Faculty are already taking advantage of new resources. Professor Lucrezia Cuen Paxson of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication recently adopted an e-textbook from our new ProQuest e-book collection for her COM 475 “Brand Storytelling” course on the Everett campus, saving students from purchasing their own copies. I also want to thank our humanities/social sciences librarian, Erica Nicol, for her outstanding engagement with the faculty she supports, including Professor Paxson. Professor Hillary Mellinger of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology partnered a second time with Lorena O’English, the libraries’ social sciences and government documents librarian, to host a creative stress-relief activity featuring coffee and zine-making in the Quiet Study Lounge.

As we mark the 250th birthday of Jane Austen, I’m so thankful for a remarkable gift received in 2021: first editions of Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, thanks to the bequest of WSU alumna Lorraine (Kure) Hanaway, Class of 1949. These beautiful volumes will enrich teaching and research for years to come. Hanaway was an outstanding student and involved in numerous honor societies on campus. She served as editor of the Daily Evergreen and in 1948 interviewed singer and actor Burl Ives when he visited campus. I am honored that she would think to leave these books that she cherished to her alma mater.

The WSU Libraries also recently received a gift of $231,000 from the estate of Melvin “Mel” Hamre, adding to the Hamre Endowment, which I wrote about in this issue of Browse. The endowment provides permanent support to the libraries by funding student employment opportunities that help defray educational expenses while offering professional experience and by expanding library collections through the purchase of books, journals, and other materials.

In November, I had the privilege of presenting to the WSU Board of Regents in Seattle, highlighting our role in supporting faculty publishing, OA, data management, upcoming trials of artificial intelligence (AI) research tools, student employment, and collaborations with the WSU Veterans’ Center and WSU Disabled Student Center. I also described the unique collections in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC), including the Leonard and Virginia Woolf Library and university archives. To add to the fun of the presentation, MASC Conservator Linnea Rash helped me to print small packets of stationery on the MASC letter press for the regents. We had a terrific discussion afterwards.

We held the annual WSU Press Holiday Book Fair last week. This year, we extended the sale over two days and sold $5,000 in books, a new record. Starting next semester, WSU Press books (including new and sale titles) will be available for purchase at the Holland and Terrell circulation desk. Hard Hat Days: My Re-Education in Seattle’s Shipyards, featured in this Browse edition, is a terrific read. I found it a compelling celebration of the lessons that work can teach, and it brought to life for me the hidden labor in shipyards.

This academic year has been a busy one, underscoring the vital role the libraries play across all WSU campuses. In 2025, researchers downloaded more than 1.39 million scholarly articles and 282,863 e-books. For this fall semester, Pullman hosted 576 information literacy classes, course-related instruction sessions, and tours, serving over 21,000 students. Digital engagement with historical photographs and other collections scanned from the archives both in Pullman and Vancouver drew nearly 700,000 page views. Our spaces were in high demand: Pullman libraries welcomed 298,609 visitors and logged more than 34,000 hours of booked study rooms, including over 1,160 hours in Holland Library’s Audio Lab.

Across campuses, librarians provided hundreds of research consultations, taught scores of classes and workshops (Tri-Cities: 5 classes, Vancouver: 26 classes and a credit-bearing course, Spokane Health Sciences Library: 13 classes), and supported students and faculty through innovative programming. Our librarians support research and learning across the WSU system by leveraging technology, one-on-one consultations, and chat. MASC faculty and staff hosted 25 classes and groups, answered more than 600 reference questions via email, and welcomed over 100 walk-in researchers.

WSU Libraries’ special collections contributed to several upcoming publications and documentaries. Pacific Northwest Quarterly is publishing a two-part special issue focused on Chicanx history in the Pacific Northwest, highlighting the region’s rich cultural and social narratives. Several articles in this issue incorporate photographs from the Irwin Nash Images of Migrant Labor Digital Collection, offering visual depth and historical context to the scholarship. Among these contributions is an article by WSU doctoral student Drew Gamboa.

Beyond scholarly publications, MASC supported the documentary Our Mr. Matsura by Beth Harrington and her team by providing images from the Frank S. Matsura Image Collection and a letter of support for grant funding. MASC also assisted with a forthcoming documentary on WSU head basketball coach George Raveling, responding to a request from the archive producer for materials related to the men’s basketball team during Raveling’s tenure at WSU (1972-1983) and campus footage from the 1970s and 1980s. University Archivist Mark O’English contributed never-before-used Raveling materials, including a talk he gave for Nike. These examples illustrate the unique value of WSU’s archival holdings on regional and WSU history.

The story is clear—our libraries are vibrant, heavily used, and deeply integrated into the academic life of WSU. As we close the year, I’m grateful for your continued support and partnership. Together, we are planting seeds (or bulbs)—both literal and figurative—that will bloom for years to come.

Warm wishes for a joyful holiday season,

Trevor