Virginia Elizabeth Olsen was a Library Circulation Assistant from 1943-45. She was born in 1915 in Portland, Oregon. She received a certification from St. Helen’s Hall Junior College in 1935, where she was the chairman of the International Relations Club, and Master of Archery. She went on to achieve her Bachelor of Arts from University of Oregon in 1937, where she worked on the staff of the class yearbook. At both these institutions, she studied English literature and history. She received her certificate of librarianship from U.C. Berkeley in 1941. Before coming to OSC, she was a high school teacher and librarian throughout Oregon for six years, but eventually decided she wanted to work with older students. She was hired as circulation assistant at a salary of $1,800. She submitted a resignation in 1945 to begin war work with the Red Cross, but soon learned that OSC was now granting leaves of absence for Red Cross work. She requested to be put on a leave of absence, instead. Although her superiors said she was “not one of the strongest staff members,” they felt she did very well working face-to-face with users of the library, and granted this request. Olsen was part of the Library Association of Portland, the Women's Faculty Club, and the Episcopal Church. She attended the National Convention of Pi Lambda Theta in 1937, and traveled throughout Central and Western Canada.
Ethel Eugenia Patten was a catalog assistant in charge of reclassification from 1939 to 1949. She was born in 1906 in Los Angeles, California. She received her Bachelor of Arts in French from Vassar College in 1926. She studied at University of Lausanne in Switzerland for a summer in 1924. She received her Bachelor of Science in Librarianship from Western Reserve University in 1930. She began to pursue her Master of Arts in 1936 at University of California, Berkeley. At the time of her hire at OSC, she had completed all the work for her M.A., except for a “special study” which she would complete away from the university. Her special study was on the subject of “the printed catalogs of some important private libraries as bibliographical tools.” By the time she came to OSC, she had spent roughly six years working in libraries as an assistant in different departments. She had served as the secretary of the East Bay Library Council, and the President of the Librarians' Association of the University of California. She was also a member of the American Library Association and the California Library Association. At OSC, she received $1800 per year, and resigned in 1949 to take another position.