Quite a massive undertaking for any facility housing over 2.6 million volumes – much less one person.
Yet, Paustenbaugh rose to the challenge, and, along with staff across many library departments, they have exceeded expectations in six short years.
“We are very proud of Jennifer and the legacy she’s upholding,” said Steven Taylor, Puterbaugh Foundation board chairman, Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice and OSU alumnus. “ Our founder, J.G. Puterbaugh, believed that libraries, books and reference materials were extremely important tools and education was the first step toward the solution of social and economic problems.”
Paustenbaugh has utilized funds from the endowment to preserve knowledge through a variety of means. Most notably through the preservation of the library’s collection, through digital preservation and, most recently, through content creation of an oral history program.
“The outstanding training methods and supplies we have been able to acquire from professorship funds means that printed and digital materials acquired today will be available and usable by many generations of students and faculty. Considering the enormous public and private investment in library materials, this is a significant stewardship effort,” noted Paustenbaugh.
In addition, Paustenbaugh credits the creation of an oral history program as one of the most rewarding activities of her career.
“Our interviews with Oklahoma women who lived through the Dust Bowl or who worked in the war effort as “Rosies” are inspiring and will interest historians and other researchers for years to come.”
These noteworthy accomplishments inspired the Puterbaugh Foundation to further fund the program by providing an additional $100,000 to the current endowment.
Paustenbaugh acknowledges this continued commitment to education as a critical success factor for the library.
“The flexibility and ability these positions give to its holders is a wonderful thing,” she said. “Projects which would have been otherwise overlooked are given the funding and time needed to make them of the highest quality to serve students and the public.”
That service reflects goals valued most by the Puterbaugh Foundation.
“[We] seek ways to support the pure academic mission of the university by funding needs that, while they may have less popular appeal to contributors, have great importance to the goals of a great educational institution,” said Taylor.
Still, what inspired the Foundation to endow a professorship rather than a scholarship?
“A scholarship helps one student which is good. But a professorship touches every student that comes into contact with that professor; whether in the classroom or through their research. That influence can touch hundreds of students each year, and because the professorship in endowed, it ensures that an infinite amount of lives will be impacted by one professor forever,” said Taylor.
Paustenbaugh continues to touch those lives today on the Stillwater campus and beyond through her service.
In addition to her noteworthy contributions to the library’s preservation legacy, Paustenbaugh co-authored the award-winning Oklahoma Women’s Almanac and was recently elected chair of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women.
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