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As our new freshmen enjoy their first day on campus (Welcome, Class of 2020!), we're looking back to freshman traditions in our past. You may not know that USAO started as a women's college, the Oklahoma Industrial Institute for Girls, in 1908. This name was unnecessarily confusing; an Oklahoma judge, assuming "industrial institute" actually meant reform school, sentenced a young woman to serve time here! The school's name was thus changed to Oklahoma College for Women. We were Oklahoma College for Women until 1965, when the college became fully co-educational and was renamed Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts. With the name change, we also acquired a new mission: among all the public colleges in Oklahoma, we were to be an experimental college with a unique, challenging interdisciplinary program. That is still our mission today as University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma; we became a University in 1974 because the state decided that all 4-year institutions of higher education should have "University" in the name.

Now that we've shared a little bit of college history, we'd like to look back on a venerable Oklahoma College for Women tradition: the freshman beanie.

Beginning in the 1920s, OCW had an annual Freshman-Sophomore week of competitions, including sports games, capture the flag, tug of war across the pond (so the losers fell in!), and a parade. The competition was fierce but good-natured. During the week, Freshmen wore these green felt beanies (produced by one Collegiate Manufacturing Company of Ames, Iowa), and Sophomores wore derbies. Whenever a Freshman met a Sophomore, the Freshman was supposed to take off her beanie and bow, saying, "I am but a lowly frosh. I bow to you, oh mighty soph." This hasn't been done since the 1960s, but we still have a box in the archives full of beanies!

Collegiate Manufacturing Company did a great job on the beanies; they are in remarkably good shape, and they came in multiple sizes measured at 1/8" increments! Whatever can we do with a box full of vintage beanies? If we ever do an OCW history display in the library, we can at least include a few!

We are very happy to announce that we have received a very generous gift: a collection of operetta and musical theatre materials including LPs, books, CDs, and posters!

This pallet has 14 very heavy boxes, packed full of materials! We took this picture just before we started unwrapping the boxes and taking them upstairs.

Now we have to inventory the items so we know exactly what we have, and then we can start to process them. Before an item goes onto the circulating library shelves, it has to be cataloged, added to our online systems, and labeled with a call number. Special collections items aren't labelled like circulating items, but they still have to be thoroughly cataloged. Once they're ready to go, we will add them to the Music Pocket Library.

There are some uncommon materials in the collection, and as we unpack them, we'll be sure to let everyone know what we find! This is a really great addition for us; we've been working to improve our music collection and services through the Music Pocket Library, and this collection will make us an even better resource for music and theatre students! From an interdisciplinary perspective, popular theatre, like operetta and musical theatre, can tell us a lot about the society that produces it. We see what words they used, what situations they found funny, what pop culture figures and current events they satirized...there's a lot to learn, but it all has to be understood in the context of the music and theatrical performance! We're so excited that we have this collection available to our USAO community!

On Monday, April 11th, we'll be hosting Long Night at Nash, an evening of studying, games, and fun before finals! The t-shirts and squeeze balls we'll be giving away just arrived, and we are really happy with how they turned out!

The color isn't quite right in this picture; the t-shirts and squeeze balls are both light gray in real life. Given the anticipated demand for this most excellent shirt, we won't just give them away to everyone who walks in the door; you actually have to stay here and study to get one! Everyone in the library will receive a ticket on the hour, and once you have four tickets, you can pick up your shirt!

There will also be prizes given away throughout the course of the evening; some will be awarded to the game winners, while others will be awarded by chance. Again, everyone gets a ticket on the hour, every hour. Every couples hours, we'll draw a few more tickets and give away a few more prizes. The longer you stay, the more chances you will have to win!