Oregon State University's revered Valley Library is digitizing all of its special collections. Starting with its prized Linus Pauling Collection, the library is installing an Internet-enabled Laserfiche Document Imaging system.

"Laserfiche is the centerpiece of the Pauling Digitization Project," said Chris Petersen, faculty research assistant at the library. "All of the documents in our digital database have been scanned, indexed and OCR'd using Laserfiche software. Laserfiche is easy to use and allows for keyword and full-text searches that have been very helpful in managing such a large project."

The ultimate goal of the Pauling Digitalization Project is make the entire Pauling Collection available for research over the Internet via Laserfiche WebLink, a scan-to-the-web publishing system. The Pauling Collection contains more than 500,000 items, including the Nobel medals and all of the personal and scientific papers, notebooks, and correspondence of the late Dr. Pauling (1901-1994) and his late wife, Ava Helen Pauling (1903-1981), starting from 1916. Dr. Pauling donated the collection to OSU in 1986. Dr. Pauling won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1963. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from OSU in 1922.

Oregon State needed software that was dependable and easy for everyone in the special collections department to use. In addition to organizing the collection, Laserfiche now allows the department to efficiently support patron requests by quickly finding any document.

"We are happy with the product's performance and to be associated with Laserfiche," Petersen said. "Laserfiche would certainly be of use to other libraries and special collections, especially considering the mounting emphasis being placed on electronic resources and digital collections."

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