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We also planned several exciting events in February, including a WSU Press open house with a panel discussion by Pacific Northwest authors Richard Scheuerman, Thomas Bancroft, and Jack Nisbet. We partnered with the WSU Common Reading Program on a lecture by WSU graduate and former library employee Amanda Van Lanen on the history and growth of the state\u2019s apple industry. During Van Lanen\u2019s time working in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC), she consulted the Yakima Valley Growers Association records, which eventually led to her dissertation topic in the WSU history department and her book The Washington Apple: Orchards and the Development of Industrial Agriculture<\/em>. The final event of the month features readings from the newly published A Ukrainian Dictionary of War<\/em>, commemorating the third anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Poet Ostap Slyvynsky gathered the reflections of average Ukrainian citizens\u2014such as WSU postdoctoral research associate Anna Kyslynska\u2014as they observed the invasion unfold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington State College President Ernest O. Holland was known as an avid collector of art and books. With limited funds available from the state, Holland and Librarian W.W. Foote built library collections largely through donations. The growing holdings put extreme pressure on library staff and quickly overwhelmed the storage capacity in Bryan Hall. (Today, Bryan retains the original theatre, but the building\u2019s northern half once housed the library, which had a large reading room and mezzanine level and compact steel shelving for materials.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, the library purchased 27,637 volumes in 1943 and 1944; however, 532,637 donated items were added to the collection. Librarian Foote stored the donated collections in basements and attics across campus in eight separate buildings. Aware of the lack of funding coming to the library from his administration, Holland created the Friends of the Library in 1938, with Spokane banker Joel Ferris as head. Holland called individual faculty members and instructed them to join. He also played an active role in the Friends of the Library, personally donating to the group and directing its purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Holland and the Friends of the Library made some notable acquisitions during the late 1930s and 1940s. The Inland Empire Early Birds Breakfast Club of Spokane donated $5,000 to purchase Spanish, French, and English books and manuscripts in Mexico and in the Central American countries. Holland sent foreign languages professor J. Horace Nunemaker to Spain and Mexico to purchase early printed books. While in Mexico, Nunemaker acquired a significant body of 18th- and 19th-century manuscripts related to the aristocratic Regla family in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On occasion, Holland spent large sums for items he particularly wanted. He acquired a 28-volume set of Frederick Hill Meserve\u2019s Historical Portraits<\/em><\/a>, a publication hand-produced to order that included thousands of Mathew Brady photos. Each volume was extremely expensive at $195. Holland personally purchased four volumes so WSC could have a complete set. To put this in some context, during the 1930s, the library regularly purchased English books published in the 17th century for less than a dollar. This edition of Historical Portraits<\/em> is held in MASC and available for viewing upon request.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/02\/Andrew_Bolon_marker_outside_Goldendale_reduced-1024x626.jpg\")