The Library’s first-ever certificate program will take place in summer 2023. Undergraduate students can apply now!

The UCR Library is excited to announce the launch of a digital scholarship certificate program that will provide undergraduate students the opportunity to engage deeply with primary sources that highlight student activism and BIPOC student voices from the past at UCR. Digital scholarship is used in this context to describe the use of digital tools or methods for a variety of scholarly activities like research, teaching, and publishing.

The program will be led the UCR Library’s Digital Scholarship Program Team which includes Digital Scholarship Librarian Rachel Starry, Digital Initiatives Specialist Krystal Boehlert, Special Collections Public Services, Outreach and Community Engagement Librarian Sandy Enriquez, and Innovative Media Librarian Alvaro Alvarez.

Participants will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on projects and work with archival material from the UCR Library. They will also gain valuable skills in research, photography, data, and critical analysis.

“Since 2020, the Digital Scholarship Program has been working to expand the support we offer to campus for teaching and learning with digital tools,” explains Rachel Starry. “We’re very excited to launch this new opportunity for students to really dig into special collections and build their digital literacy skills.”

While the certificate program is non-credit bearing, students in the social sciences and humanities may find it not only complements their coursework but simultaneously provides an opportunity to explore subjects that they may not typically have access to through their departmental curriculum. Students accepted into the program can look forward to taking workshops on the following topics:

• Encountering Archives: Materiality and Space
• DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Imaging in the Archives
• Metadata & Data Management for Digitized Archival Materials
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition): Turning Digitized Documents into Searchable Texts
• Close and Distant Reading: Quantitative Text Analysis for Archival Materials
• Curating Digital Exhibits

Undergraduate students can apply for the program now until April 28, 2023. A maximum of 30 applicants will be accepted into the program and applicants will be notified of their acceptance status in May 2023. The program will run from June 26 to August 4, 2023.

Students interested in learning more about the program can join the Digital Scholarship Program Team on February 24 for a virtual Info Session. RSVP on Eventbrite. Instructors are welcome to attend and share this opportunity with their undergraduate students.

For more information and to apply for the program, please visit our Digital Scholarship Certificate Program web page.