| Douglas Strain Reading Room |
 The Douglas Strain Reading Room in Special Collections houses the History of Science collection. The reading area offers a pleasant environment for researchers and visiting scholars. The spacious floor is made
of giant timber bamboo from Central Northern China and the furniture is of white maple.
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The floor to ceiling windows provide an expansive view of Oregon State University's library quadrangle and the surrounding
campus.
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Special Collections provides two large worktables with network and power connections for researchers.
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| Linus Pauling's Office |
Viewable from our Reading Room is an area containing items from Pauling's office at Caltech, including his desk and chalkboard.
Hanging on the walls are other items including a panoramic picture of Pauling's Caltech office, a portrait of Ava Helen Pauling,
the Nobel Peace Prize certificate from 1963, and a special commendation from the National Academy of Sciences marking Pauling's
90th birthday.
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Linus Pauling's desk and chalkboard, with Pauling's drawing of a "mystery molecule." When Pauling was asked in a 1977 interview
about the origins of this drawing, he responded as follows:
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"I had an idea in the field of organic chemistry about 40 years ago. It involved this unusual compound. Benzine has a six-membered
ring of carbon atoms and this compound has three six-membered rings consisting of six carbon atoms and seven nitrogen atoms
and then it has these hydroxyl groups attached. It is known that the similar substance with only one ring can be made into
certain derivatives that have anti-cancer activity. And I thought that this substance with only three rings might well operate
in the same way and that we should study it."
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A close-up of Linus Pauling's desk, showing a research notebook, molecular model, lab coat and other equipment.
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A close-up of one of Pauling's many research notebooks. View all the notebooks in more detail at our Linus Pauling Research Notebooks site.
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All photographs, except Reading Room #1 and Closed Stacks #3, are by Eric Arnold, 2003.
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