Message from the Dean

Now that we are well into summer, we can reflect on the previous semester, look ahead to fall, and take time to work on summer projects and recharge for the year ahead.

In my interactions with colleagues across campus, I do my best to share information about how the WSU community engages with our library collections. If you remember only one number, it is this: WSU researchers download more than one million articles each semester. In addition, this past spring we saw nearly 400,000 e-book uses and more than 340,000 page views of library-created digital collections. Our Access Services colleagues also responded to more than 38,000 loan requests per semester. These are terrific numbers that reflect library use across the system—thank you, Ying and Brian, for gathering the data—and they are a testament to everyone’s hard work and the strong engagement we see with our collections.

Since the last issue of Browse, we have received our WSU Libraries’ budget for the next fiscal year. For the Pullman libraries, there will be no reductions. In addition, the $240,000 allocated last year to sustain the Wiley package has been renewed for the upcoming year. Our Wiley and Elsevier agreements cover the open access (OA) costs for WSU researchers to expand the impact of their research. Since January, WSU scholars have had 81 OA article fees waived with Wiley and 95 with Elsevier, thereby saving individual faculty, labs, and departments more than $675,000. Unfortunately, as part of a budget reduction on the WSU Vancouver campus, the library lost valued colleagues, which will affect hours and services.

In my time as dean, I have seen tremendous support for the libraries from WSU’s senior leadership, faculty, staff, and students. Please continue to advocate for all of the libraries and emphasize the importance of our services and collections in supporting teaching and research. I welcome your ideas for expanding our communications and demonstrating our impact.

At the end of June, as part of the Cougar Commons project, we finalized the purchase of more than $400,000 in new furniture for Terrell Library. Our vendor will place the order early next week, and I will send an update on the delivery and installation schedule. Please share your ideas for a grand opening event we could hold early in the fall semester. With donor support, we are also purchasing additional furniture and will create the libraries’ first meditation/sensory room near the Disabled Student Center.

In addition to the newly renovated spaces and furniture, this summer we will establish three new art installations featuring the work of WSU Department of Art faculty. Professor Jiemei Lin is painting a mural celebrating the Gallup Collection of rare fishing books in the Quiet Study Lounge at Terrell Library. In two weeks with funding from the David G. Pollart Center for Arts and Humanities, Professor Kevin Haas will screen-print directly on the wall just off the Terrell atrium ground floor and install a series of prints featuring the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, along with imagery from the Epic of Gilgamesh and projectile points from the Cooper’s Ferry archaeological site in Idaho. Department of Art Chair Squeak Meisel will also install a drawing titled “collectively speaking.” My hope is that all visitors will experience the libraries as a place of inspiration and connection with WSU’s rich cultural offerings.

In May, Lotus Norton-Wisla stepped down as interim head of Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) and returned to her role as community outreach archivist. Will Gregg, manuscripts librarian, began a two-year term as MASC interim head. Will is also working on an exhibit featuring one of MASC’s newest collections, rare mountaineering books donated in June 2025 by WSU alums and renowned climbers John Roskelley and Chris Kopczynski. Both men will discuss the collection, mountaineering, their WSU connection, and more at a reception and open program on Friday, September 25, in the MASC lobby of the ground-floor Terrell Library atrium.

Please join me in congratulating Erin Hvizdak, humanities librarian, on the acceptance of her proposed panel, “New Orleans on Display: Exhibitionary Nostalgia and Urban Identity in the Nineteenth-Century City,” for the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans January 7–10. As far as I know, this is the first acceptance for a library faculty member—an impressive achievement.

This issue also features a story on Patti Hirahara’s establishment of two endowments in MASC. The George and Frank C. Hirahara Photograph Collection is one of the most requested collections in MASC, with images featured in Emmy Award-winning documentaries, news stories, NFL films, and other media.

On a more personal note, I recently finished John Williams’ novel Stoner, about a young man who leaves his parents’ Missouri farm and attends a land-grant university. It is a beautifully written, sad, and, at times, heroic novel—one of the best fictional accounts of academic life. Like many others in the coming weeks, I plan to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey and am considering organizing a Zoom book group series about it. Let me know if you are interested.

Thank you for your ongoing interest in and support of the WSU Libraries.

Warmly,

Trevor