An electronic version of USC's 2012 OAPS anthology is now available on the USC Libraries website. This year's collection consists of papers submitted through the USC Undergraduate Writers Conference and selected by a team of faculty, librarians, and student editors. Click through to read the anthology and learn more about the Outstanding Academic Papers by Students program.

Since 2002, the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture and the USC Libraries have partnered with archives around the world to digitize more than 82,000 historical photographs by Christian missionaries and make them publicly available through the USC Digital Library. Now, two new grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) totaling $305,000 will allow USC and partner archives to add an additional 20,000 images to the International Mission Photography Archive (IMPA) database. NEH funding will also support development of video essays that bring IMPA collections together with scholarly analysis and digital storytelling methods. Keep reading to learn more about IMPA.

The Cooking with Kuali! blog recently featured the impressions of USC Libraries staff members Virginia Ernst, Yesenia Martinez, and Karen Pinto about the Kuali suite of open source administrative software. Ernst, Martinez, and Pinto, who collectively oversee procurement for 250 USC Libraries employees, use the software in the course of processing 300-400 monthly transactions.

On May 1-2, the USC Libraries hosted the Outsanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS) 9th-annual task force meeting. Click through for photos from the two-day meeting—the third international conference hosted by the USC Libraries this academic year.

Business librarian John Juricek recently accompanied a group of 75 USC Marshall MBA students on a two-week trip to Shanghai. Juricek—head of USC's Crocker Business Library and Accounting Library—joined the students to enrich his understanding of international business and learn more about the students' information needs. Photos and more information about Juricek's trip appear after the jump.

USC graduate student Andrew Woodham accepted first prize in the USC Libraries Wonderland Award competition at a ceremony in Doheny Memorial Library on Thursday, April 19. The other winners were USC graduate students Lindsey Jones, who won second prize, and Stylés Akira, who won third prize. Click through for photos from the ceremony and to learn more about the award and this year's winners.

Dean Catherine Quinlan of the USC Libraries is featured in a video about the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which USC hosted on April 21 and 22. In the video, Quinlan discusses how the festival reveals the connections between USC and the literary world. Click through for the video, or watch it on YouTube.

Join the USC Digital Repository on Tuesday, May 22 for a special screening and presentation of Lost Landscapes by Rick Prelinger. An archivist, writer, and filmmaker, Prelinger will reveal lost American landscapes through home movies, stock footage, and other ephemeral films. His presentation—part of the Screening the Future 2012 conference—will offer practical insights into the pressing questions that face archivists and archives today.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday, May 1 and 2, the USC Libraries host the Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS) 2012 annual meeting. The meeting—the third international conference hosted by the USC Libraries this academic year—includes discussions among representatives of participating universities, a guided tour of the USC Libraries special collections, and visits to Los Angeles-area cultural and educational institutions. Keep reading to learn more about OAPS and next week's conference.

A recent post to AMC's blog for its Hell on Wheels television series referenced the USC Digital Library's Los Angeles Star Collection. As Mina Hochberg explains, a character in the period drama was based on Olive Oatman, a real-life historical figure whose story of abduction and captivity by Native Americans appeared in the April 19, 1856, Los Angeles Star. Keep reading to learn more about Oatman and the USC Digital Library's Los Angeles Star Collection.