More News August 01, 2017

After 18 months in development, the first release of the DocNow tool is expected by fall/winter 2017.

DocNow, short for “Documenting the Now,” is a free, open-source tool designed to support the ethical appraisal, collection, use, and preservation of social media content.

The purpose of DocNow is to help archivists and scholars make sense of large datasets of social media content. DocNow’s developers hope that by providing this free and easy to use tool, users can gather and preserve posts made by everyday people, particularly those of eyewitnesses, which often challenge the accepted narratives presented by the mainstream media on controversial social issues.

UCR Library’s University and Political Papers Archivist Bergis Jules has spoken frequently at public events about his work with DocNow, with a particular focus on the ethical aspects surrounding the curation of social media content into archives.

“Just because things are public doesn’t mean you can take them,” Jules said. “People have a right to privacy, a right to be forgotten on the internet. There are a lot of surveillance concerns with activists who are being monitored by police illegally through their social media accounts.” DocNow will try to honor these ethical principles by respecting the privacy of individual users who do not want their posts to be included in an archive or a research dataset.

Originally spurred by the online discussion surrounding the death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, MO, the creators behind DocNow intend for this platform to serve two purposes moving forward: community-building and scholarly research. They hope that the many archives people will create by using DocNow will influence how history is written for future generations, allowing for the underrepresented voices of people of color to be included in the historical records of significant events.

As Deray McKesson (@deray) posted on Twitter, “We exist in a tradition of erased histories. Twitter has helped us tell our own story. We are sitting in history and making it. #Ferguson”

Jules mused on Medium, “What would have remained today of the public social media record if micro blogging services like Twitter had been around during the aftermath of the Rodney King beating, the acquittal of the officers and the subsequent riots?”

DocNow will help to provide this missing piece of the puzzle for future generations of scholars to ponder.

Funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, DocNow was developed through a collaboration between UC Riverside, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland.

More News September 30, 2022

More News September 19, 2019

The UCR Library team has been busy all summer long, moving departments and collections to prepare for fall quarter 2019.

Here is a summary of what has changed since spring quarter:

In July, Elsevier suspended direct access to articles published in 2019 for the University of Calfornia. This article contains more details about who is affected, how to get the articles you need, and more.

A new open access agreement between Cambridge University Press and the University of California is now ready for author submissions.

The Music Library closed its doors on Friday, September 6. All music materials are now housed in the Rivera Library. See this article for more specifics.

Most of the collection materials formerly held in the Map Collection have been relocated to the first floor of Orbach Library, under the new Geospatial Resources section. This area is located outside the Creat'R Lab. A portion of the collection (lesser-used materials) is being moved to the basement of Rivera Library; these items will fall under the management of Special Collections & University Archives and will be available at a later date in the fall, once construction has been completed on the new Rivera basement space.

Items in the juvenile literature and Curriculum Resources collection are now located in the basement of Rivera Library, including puppets, manipulatives, teaching aids, and more.

The library switched from Melvyl to WorldCat Discovery for access to UC-wide collections in June. Update your Melvyl bookmarked links to: ucr.on.worldcat.org/discovery

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) moved its offices to behind the right side of the Circulation / Reserves Desk at Rivera Library. The new location puts ILL front-and-center, along with the rest of patron services at Rivera.

The library adopted a revised Fines & Fees structure in July, which should greatly benefit both the library and its patrons.

Lastly, our Collection Strategies department acquired several new databases, archives and reference works, which will enhance the library's existing collections.

• Read more about How Do I Find - Primary Sources

More News June 14, 2015

Epic poem showcases "expedition of discovery" through unique lens.

In March, the UCR Library acquired one of 65 copies of The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. Held in Special Collections & University Archives in Rivera Library, this book is a reinvention of Sacajewea's personal journal. From the paper to the cover to the binding to the typeface, and all the way through the photographic interventions that accompany the narrative, it feels fragile and rare and incredibly special in your hands.

Spring 2005 marked the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And yet, while she is perhaps the most famous American Indian woman in history, Sacajewea's biographical details still remain a great mystery. Intrigued by this, and observing two exhibitions at the Missoula Museum of Art related to the bicentennial, master printer and book artist Peter Koch collaborated with poet and author Debra Magpie Earling to develop this visually-stunning poetic interpretation of Sacajewea's personal journal from the expedition.

"Debra Earling’s narrative takes us behind the eyes and ears of a pregnant 17-year-old girl traveling up the Missouri River with the 'expedition of discovery' in 1804-5," explains Koch. "She is haunted by visions." This sensation is expressed through the incredible photographs that accompany Earling's poem. The narrative is printed on semi-transparent, handmade paper so that the images float eerily through the text. Jonathan Gerken utilized empty shell casings, trade beads, and handmade smoked buffalo rawhide paper to bind the book in Koch's shop. The historic Fell typeface, reminiscent of the Eighteenth Century, evokes an indistinct nostalgia for the era. 

Robert G. Trujillo, Frances & Charles Field Curator of Special Collections for Stanford University Libraries, has called the book "an important work to own—for content as well as design and printing." This edition is limited to 65 copies, each signed by the author and the artist.

The complete prospectus can be found online at Peter Koch Printers. Please contact Special Collections & University Archives at (951) 827-3233 or specialcollections@ucr.edu to make viewing arrangements.

Image courtesy of Peter Koch Printers.

More News October 22, 2021

A chance meeting with a Special Collections librarian completely altered the career path of UCR alumna Andrea Valencia.

A Latin American history major, Valencia often visited Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) for a history course with Professor Juliette Levy. While in SCUA, she met Robin Katz, Arts and Humanities Teaching Librarian, who led a teaching seminar for Levy. (At the time, Katz was the Outreach and Public Services Librarian for SCUA.)

Katz’s enthusiasm for teaching and learning with primary sources made a strong impression. Valencia explained, “Her expression of joy to share that information with us, and our joy of receiving it was an entirely new experience for me. Seeing someone so happy, so charismatic, and having so much fun teaching students how to handle these documents, I realized that I wanted to be in that kind of position one day.”

So, Valencia asked Katz, “How do I become you?”

Katz replied, “You’ll have to get your MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science).”

After graduating from UC Riverside in 2016, Valencia enrolled at San Jose State, where she completed her MLIS in 2019.

Until that day, Valencia had thought she wanted to become an elementary teacher. “For some reason, my perspective on education and teaching was that it was only something you could do with a large age gap,” Valencia explained. “I never realized until that moment that you could be an adult teaching other adults or young adults something that they are passionate about. Being that source of information for them, and having a slightly more equitable sharing of knowledge.”

A Corona native and only child, Valencia’s parents presented her with two choices for college: UCR or Cal State Fullerton. “I really wanted to go to UCR because I’m a life-long Riverside resident. I plan on staying in Riverside long term. It’s my home, and UC Riverside was the obvious choice.”

Valencia now works as the Reference and Instruction Librarian at the Riverside County Law Library. She has been working in libraries for nearly five years now.

Upon learning of her impact on Valencia’s life path, Katz said, “It’s an honor and a privilege to get to help UCR students forge their academic and post-college careers! I am always happy to speak to anyone interested in librarianship, archives, museums, and related cultural heritage professions.”

To Katz, Valencia would say, “Thank you for presenting this job opportunity for me, this path in life that I never would have considered. As many other students, I was like, ‘What’s next? What am I going to do after I graduate?’ Growing up and going into college, thinking you want to be a librarian is not so common.”

Valencia encouraged her fellow Highlanders to learn about libraries in different settings, the Library Bill of Rights, and libraries’ commitment to the freedom of information. “Libraries are an integral part of society. Your local library, they want to meet you, they want you to come, they want you to talk to them. We’re sitting there waiting for the next person to come in because we're so excited.”

Still early in her career, Valencia is excited to see where this path takes her. “I’m using this period of my life to learn as much as I can, to find as many mentors as possible, and to go to as many conferences as possible. I just presented at CLA for the first time last year, so this is a growth and learning period for me and I really hope that in five years, I’m ready to be in the next place where I’m ready to be at home more permanently. The dream is obviously to go back to UCR.”

For UCR’s current students, Valencia shared this advice: “Don’t be so set or worried that you have to decide your future at such a young age, because ultimately your future is unfolding before you in ways that you can’t expect. It’s not like reading your story and you don’t know the end. You’re not supposed to know where you end up when you’re starting the story! You’re supposed to be flipping page by page, experience by experience, person by person, and end up where you’re supposed to end up by fate, or whatever you want to call it. Ultimately, that’s how I feel the UCR Library impacted my life. The people I met, the experiences I had there, and the time that I spent there ultimately changed my story, unfolded it in the way it was supposed to, and led me to a very fulfilling career that not many people know of.”

More News January 27, 2023

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. 

• Read more about Tuskegee Airmen Collections

More News August 08, 2019

The Sherman Indian Museum digitization project now has more than 9,000 items available online through Calisphere; at the completion of the project, this figure will surpass 13,000.

The Sherman Indian Museum holds the archives of the Sherman Indian High School, an off-reservation boarding high school for Native Americans, with students from grades 9 through 12 who represent 76 federally recognized tribes from across the United States. Originally called the Perris Indian School when it opened in 1892 in Perris, California, it was moved to Riverside in 1903 under the name of The Sherman Institute. Then in 1971, it was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and renamed as the Sherman Indian High School.

Over the past two years, the UCR Library’s Digitization Project Coordinator Charlotte Dominguez has worked with four UCR students and 12 student workers from Sherman Indian High School to make items from the museum’s archival collections available online worldwide. Project completion is set by fall 2019.

“Native Americans were a big part of Southern California history that people don’t know a lot about, outside of academia,” explained Dominguez, who has worked with the Indigenous community for about 10 years, including her time with UC Riverside. “The native community is very active, very present. People with indigenous heritage only make about 1-1.5% of the population, but their culture is strong and thriving.”

The digitized collection spans more than a century of the school’s history: from the early years of the Perris Indian School in the 1890s, the Sherman Institute in the early 1900s, to when Sherman Indian High School was founded in the early 1970s, up to contemporary students in 2009.

“It has been a dream come true to have this project come to reality. Our boarding school story needs to be told, shared, and available to the world. That story has impacted our tribes in many ways, good and bad,” said Lorene Sisquoc, Director of the Sherman Indian Museum. “Now the photos and documents our museum holds can be accessed in a safe way. The alumni, families and researchers who are seeking this information can now have it at their fingertips. These records of our school’s history are now preserved for future generations to know this story.”

“Even though what we’re showing is mostly history, it’s still relevant to the present,” Dominguez added. “They’re living in modern times, but still keeping their history, traditions and culture relevant.”

Early on, Digitization Program Services Manager Eric Milenkiewicz knew that having this collection available digitally would have a deeply rewarding impact for the Native American community and researchers worldwide.

“Successful projects like this demonstrate what can be achieved when academic institutions and local community archives join forces,” Milenkiewicz added. “Not only does this help to preserve and increase access to these cultural heritage collections, but it also helps to strengthen the bond between the university and the community it serves."

The project’s goals went beyond purely digitizing the collection and publishing it on the Internet. Dominguez also spent time teaching the students and Sherman Indian Museum Director Lorene Sisquoc how to use their newly-acquired tools and equipment, how to create metadata, and how to research using the internet to cross-reference details, so that the museum could continue the work independently after this project’s term ends.

The computer and scanning equipment used for the project will remain on-site at the Museum, and Dominguez added that Sisquoc intends to have Sherman Indian High School students continue scanning photos and documents, though they may not be published immediately on Calisphere. Even with the projected 13,000 items published online at project’s end, Dominguez said that there are still several thousand items remaining to be digitized, which were not part of the original project.

After digitization, a lot of behind-the-scenes work still remained before the team could publish this massive collection on Calisphere, which is where Digital Assets Metadata Librarian Noah Geraci made significant contributions to the project’s success. Geraci’s work transformed the collection from a group of files on a hard drive to a publicly accessible online resource. “It’s been really wonderful to work with the Sherman community and be part of such a meaningful project,” he said.

"The Sherman Digital Project has already had an incredible impact on Native American individuals, families, and tribes who have accessed the collections online. Until the digital project, many American Indians had been unable to visit Sherman Indian Museum to access records germane to their families and people.  Now they have easy access to documents, and they are able to learn about their friends and relatives who were former students of Sherman Institute,” explained Dr. Clifford E. Trafzer, Distinguished Professor of History and Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs. “In addition to supporting new scholarship, digital access has opened new research opportunities to Native Americans. The project is a major contribution and welcomed by many researchers, including student researchers of all ages."​

Milenkiewicz originally collaborated with Dr. Trafzer to write and submit the grant proposal in April 2016. In January 2017, the library received the grant totaling $376,191 from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

More News November 22, 2024

One of the newest exhibits on display in Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA) is First in the Nation: A History of the Costo Library. 

This exhibit offers a deeply personal and historical look at the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian. Curated by Sandy Enriquez, Special Collections Public Services Outreach and Community Engagement Librarian, the exhibit reflects the lifelong dedication of Rupert and Jeanette Costo to activism, scholarship, and the preservation of Native American heritage. The exhibit is on display through the end of winter quarter 2025 in the Costo Library, located on the 4th floor of the Tomás Rivera Library in SCUA.

Enriquez curated the exhibit, while Christian Bean, the UCR Library’s Conservator, carried out the physical installation. Together, they created an experience that highlights the Costos’ enduring legacy. One standout feature is a rare photograph of a young Rupert Costo holding a bundle of quail. This image is paired with his short story, Song of the Quail, which tells the story of a young Cahuilla boy on a journey of self-discovery. “Seeing it in juxtaposition with Costo's photograph, it really feels like you can trace where the inspiration for this story might have come from,” Enriquez said.

The exhibit’s opening reception earlier this month brought the community together in a meaningful way. Guided tours allowed attendees to explore the exhibit in-depth while engaging with Native faculty, students, and community members. Sandy expressed her gratitude to Dr. Clifford Trafzer, Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs, and William Madrigal, doctoral student and Cahuilla language professor, for their input on the exhibit and reception. A particularly touching moment was the attendance of Mara Costo, Rupert Costo’s niece, and her family. The event also generated enthusiasm among Native faculty and community members to digitize the Costo Library dedication cassette tapes, reinforcing the library’s commitment to preserving and sharing Indigenous histories.

Enriquez hopes visitors will leave with a deeper understanding of the Costo Library’s significance. “The Costo Library is not just a study space; it is the physical manifestation of a lifetime of activism, scholarship, and foresight from the Costos. This is an important part of UCR’s history that we should not forget or overlook,” she said.

This exhibit also reflects the broader mission of the Costo Library: to serve as a hub for rigorous research in Native American Studies. Enriquez envisions this as the first of many future exhibits in the space, each continuing the legacy of the Costos by fostering public scholarship and advancing knowledge.

Through First in the Nation, UCR honors the Costos’ invaluable contributions to the field of Native American Studies. The exhibit invites visitors to engage with a history that remains deeply relevant today.

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Event	First in the Nation: A History of the Costo Library
Location	Tomás Rivera Library, 4th floor, Costo Library in Special Collections & University Archives (enter the double glass doors)
Dates	Monday, September 23, 2024 - Friday, March 21, 2025
Hours	View this exhibit during SCUA's operating hours.  Monday  - Friday: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  NOTE: We are closed during UCR observed holidays.
Parking	Free Visitor Parking is available on Fridays, starting at 12:00 PM through 6:00 AM Monday morning in the unreserved spaces of the following parking lots/structures: Lot 6 Blue Lot 13 Blue Big Springs Parking Structure 2 Lot 26 Gold Lot 30 Gold Lot 50 Gold Paid Visitor Parking information can be found here.