Howdy from the Texas A&M University West Campus (Business) Library, home of the College Station, Texas PTRC since December 22, 1983. We are looking forward to celebrating 35 years as a PTRC in the coming year! I, Jared Hoppenfeld, along with assistance from library staff member Boyd Conerway, are happy to assist students, faculty, and community members with their P&T questions.
Several opportunities have come about to work with innovative groups on campus. I have repeatedly presented to and worked with students from the Engineering Innovation Center (EIC) and the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship. Since last seminar, new groups I have supported include the NSF I-Corps Site, the newly formed School of Innovation, or “I-School”, as well as the newly formed Mays Innovation Research Center.
As we have been nearing storage capacity for our plant patents, I have explored various options for moving forward (thanks to everyone who has given me feedback!) I decided to continue storing the plant patents in hanging file folders and therefore purchased four new lateral filing cabinets (see image) and thanks to Boyd’s assistance, we now have room for many years to come.
I have a couple of outreach activities to mention. Boyd created an exhibit in our library with information on patents and trademarks and highlighting examples of Texas A&M University System-owned intellectual property (see image). I also used the arrival of new plant patent brochures as an outreach opportunity, sending them, along with a letter about our PTRC’s services, to our Ag Librarian, Director of our new teaching gardens on campus, Heads of the Soil and Crop Sciences and Horticultural Sciences Departments, and a faculty member who has been granted plant patents. 
