Holly Matteson, a 36-year-old English education major at WSU, is not your typical student. She and her husband married when she was 19. For the next 13 years, Holly was a stay-at-home mother for their two children while her husband supported them in a lucrative, but unsatisfying job.

As their children grew older, they both realized that it was time to make a change and set an example for their children by getting the degrees they would need for the careers they wanted.

Clock in, clock out, five days a week, eight hours a day (frequently more) is the common work routine. But a WSU Libraries’ exhibit looks at the creative lives of library employees after the workday is done.

Owen Science and Engineering Library will be closed Saturday, July 18, for maintenance work to replace water valves. The library will reopen at noon Sunday, July 19.

Bob Pringle, nursing and pharmacy librarian and director of WSU’s Spokane Academic Library, retires July 1 after 35 years at WSU. A reception will be 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, in the Spokane Academic Center 501.

The library serves the WSU colleges of nursing, pharmacy and medicine, as well as Eastern Washington University health and business programs.

An exhibit opening this week in Washington State University’s Terrell Library continues the yearlong exploration of America’s garbage problems through the entity in charge of monitoring and fixing them: the government.

“Government and Waste” runs in the Terrell atrium exhibit case until June 12. It is organized by the WSU Libraries’ working group on government information to coordinate with the common reading book for 2014-15, “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash,” by Edward Humes.

Shannon Tushingham, assistant director of the Washington State University Museum of Anthropology, will receive the 2015 WSU Libraries’ Excellence Award during an 11 a.m. reception Tuesday, May 12, in the Terrell Library Atrium.

The award recognizes a non-library WSU faculty or staff member who has shown consistent support for the WSU Libraries.

A Washington State University student who delved into the local history of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s has earned a national award, one of 16 in the country.

Two WSU Libraries employees were recognized for their efforts in the university community this spring with President’s Awards at two separate events.

Graphic designer Amy Grey received the 2014-15 President’s Employee Excellence Award at the Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet on March 27, part of WSU’s annual Showcase celebration of faculty, staff and student achievement.

For Ying Lee, the yellowing newspaper clippings she scans for Washington State University Libraries unexpectedly opened the door to a conversation with a stranger on an airplane this past Christmas.

Lee, one of several WSU students working on the libraries’ online Kimble Northwest History Database, had been reading articles about Alaska—an intriguing state to the native of Taiwan. Coincidentally, seated next to her on the plane was a man headed for Anchorage. Lee and the stranger turned what could have been a dull connecting flight into a discussion on all things Alaska.

During the 1930s, proponents of the Grand Coulee Dam were quick to emphasize the progress the dam would bring to the country. Indeed, Grand Coulee provided thousands of jobs during the Great Depression, aided the American World War II effort and irrigated vast areas of central and western Washington. The dam remains the largest energy producer in the United States.