• Read more about Special Collections Collection Development Strategy

• Read more about Research Guides

More News October 30, 2024

Explore the unique and thought-provoking exhibits and displays currently on view in the Tomás Rivera Library. From political memorabilia to rare artifacts, visit soon before they're gone!

 

Political Campaign Buttons

Tomás Rivera Library, 1st Floor (left of the entrance)
View until November 26, 2024 during normal operating hours.
Explore a selection of presidential campaign buttons from our Harold and Barbara Durian Collection of Political Campaign Buttons. The complete collection, including additional political ephemera, is available for research in Special Collections & University Archives on the 4th floor and has buttons from the 1870s to 2016. Learn more. 

---

First in the Nation: A History of the Costo Library

Tomás Rivera Library, 4th Floor, Costo Library in Special Collections & University Archives
View until March 21, 2025, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
This exhibit documents the history of the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian, located on the 4th floor of the Tomás Rivera Library in Special Collections & University Archives. View to learn about Rupert and his wife Jeannette Henry-Costo, why UCR was chosen to house the library, and more. Learn more. 

---

Unexpected Artifacts

Tomás Rivera Library, 4th Floor, Special Collections & University Archives
View until December 20, 2024, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Discover surprising items Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA) has collected over the years, including protest armbands, ballet shoes, family quilts, and Cuban cigars. These unique artifacts reflect the diverse, sometimes unexpected, nature of SCUA's collections. Learn more.

---

Día de los Muertos Altar

Tomás Rivera Library, 1st Floor (right of the entrance against the blue wall)
View until November 3, 2024 during normal operating hours.
This altar—created by Dr. Amalia Cabezas, the UCR LGBT Resource Center, and volunteers—raises awareness about violence against transgender sex workers, honoring those lost and highlighting the importance of remembrance.

More News December 04, 2017

The UCR Library is pleased to announce that Robin M. Katz has assumed her new responsibilities as the Primary Source Literacy Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives.

This change reflects the continued awareness and emphasis within the world of special collections and archives of the increasing importance of primary source literacy.

As noted in the newly published SAA-RBMS Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy:

Primary sources provide compelling, direct evidence of human activity. Users who encounter primary sources gain a unique perspective on the subject they are studying, and an opportunity to learn firsthand how primary sources are used for original research. As users learn to successfully engage with primary sources, they also gain important skills that help them navigate the use of other information sources, and further develop their critical thinking skills.

Katz will serve as subject matter expert for primary source literacy and archives/special collections-based instruction and pedagogy. She will continue to teach classes and to support other learning experiences, and she is available to all library staff members for internal consultations, support, and collaborations around teaching & learning with unique and original materials.

Katz will also identify and highlight primary sources held in and outside of the library (in special and general collections, through databases and other subscriptions, at other institutions, on the open web, and in private hands) that are relevant to UCR library users, contribute to collection development, and develop reusable tools and resources for using these materials. She looks forward to working on projects that facilitate the discovery, understanding, and use of primary sources across and beyond UCR.

Please join us in congratulating Robin on her new role!

More News April 17, 2023

The UCR Library acquired access to several primary source archives from Gale and AM, formerly known as Adam Matthew Digital.

New resources from Gale:

• Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive 

  Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. The archive consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries covering the history of the slave trade.

• Native American Studies from Archives Unbound 

  Collection of primary sources and more sourced from the following archives:

  • Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries' Letters, 1833-1893

  • American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism

  • Meriam Report on Indian Administration and the Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the U.S.

  • The Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and Company

  • The War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824

• Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part 2 

  Primary source collection for research into the cultural, political, and social history of Native Peoples from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The UCR Library has access to parts 1 & 2.

New resources from AM:

• Colonial Caribbean: Colonial Office Files from The National Archives, UK

  Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, Colonial Caribbean makes available materials from 27 Colonial Office file classes from The National Archives, UK. Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.

• Confidential Print: Latin America

  This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.

• Empire Studies from AM Scholar 

  This collection offers a rich array of primary and secondary sources for the study of the British Empire. It features material on British colonial policy and government; perspectives on life in British colonies; the relationship between gender and empire; race; and class.

• Literary Print Culture: The Stationers' Company Archive

  The Stationers’ Company Archive is one of the most important resources for understanding the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, and the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding. Explore extremely rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century in this resource of research material for historians and literary scholars.

• Medieval and Early Modern Studies from AM Scholar 

  This collection provides a wide range of primary sources covering social, cultural, political, scientific, and religious perspectives from the 12th to early18th centuries. Document types include illuminated manuscripts, personal papers, diaries and letters, rare books, receipt books, and manuscript sheet music. The breadth of sources provided within this collection is extraordinary, from sources concerning the Black Death to the Restoration of the English monarchy and the Glorious Revolution.

• Medieval Family Life: The Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor and Armburgh Papers

  Includes five major letter collections and associated manuscripts from fifteenth-century England, which take the user into the world of medieval families, businesses, relationships, trade, politics and communities. Medieval Family Life presents full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts of which these letter collections are constituted, alongside fully searchable transcriptions drawn from available printed editions.

• Medieval Travel Writing

  Medieval Travel Writing is an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy. The core of the material is a collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries around the world, dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and focusing on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. Texts include some of the most influential prose works of the late Middle Ages – notably the books of Marco Polo and ‘Sir John Mandeville’ – but also important items by lesser-known authors such as John of Plano Carpini and Odoric of Pordenone.

• Nineteenth Century Literary Society: The John Murray Publishing Archive

  Nineteenth Century Literary Society makes available more than 1,400 items from the archive of the historic John Murray publishing company. Primary source materials span the entirety of the long nineteenth century and document the golden era of the House of Murray from its inception in 1768. Records digitized in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.

• Race Relations in America

  Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.

More News December 30, 2016

Here are some suggestions from the library team for new things to try in 2017 that you might not have known you could do at UCR Library, or that you may never have tried before.

They might even make you feel like a kid in a candy store.

Explore Rare Treasures in Special Collections & University Archives:

“A lot of people think if they’re not a UCR graduate student or UCR faculty member, then they can’t access our Special Collections, but anyone can come,” explained Zayda Delgado, Special Collections Public Services Assistant. “We encourage everyone to contact us, we encourage walk-ins. Come up, look at the exhibits, and to talk to our staff to get a feel for what we have here.”

In the Scotty catalog, most things housed in Special Collections have a blue “request” button. Archival collections (which can include letters, diaries, photographs, and more) are also listed in Scotty, but the detailed descriptions are found in finding aids on the Online Archive of California (OAC).

Once you’ve found what you want, submit the request and library staff will pull the materials for you.

Before you arrive, it helps if you register online. This makes things a lot easier for library employees and for you. Your online account can also track what you’ve looked at in previous visits, which comes in handy down the line for future research.

Then when you arrive on the 4^th floor of Rivera Library, you’ll simply check in at the Special Collections desk, present photo ID to verify your identity, receive the materials you requested, and start working. Just expect to follow a few guidelines that help keep these materials safe and in good condition for future researchers: you’ll check your bags, use pencils only, turn off your camera’s flash, and enjoy any food or drinks before coming into the reading room.

Current hours for our Special Collections department can be found on the library website.

If you can’t come to the reading room in person, Special Collections & University Archives staff can provide electronic reproductions of certain materials, which can be emailed to you.

Instead of clicking “request,” simply click on “switch to reproduction order.” Then select your preferred format (PDF, JPG, or TIFF) for delivery. This is service is not exclusive to archival material, is available for a fee and scans are delivered electronically through your account in our online request system. Those details are here.

Our staff will gladly communicate back and forth with you to answer any questions you may have. You can always ask a question about our collections or how to use them by emailing specialcollections@ucr.edu.

Create and Play with our Maker Boxes

Visitors to Rivera or Orbach libraries may have noticed boxes situated on the counters near the entryway, filled with Legos, coloring books, magnet poetry, chess / checkers, and other assorted activities and craft supplies.

These are our Maker Boxes, and they serve two main purposes:

They can give you a break while you’re here studying, to do something creative, which can in itself refresh and inspire. This can also spark new ideas for creative projects that you might want to pursue in your studies.

Additionally, the Maker Boxes are meant to establish the UCR Library as a place where creativity can and should happen, in addition to all of the more traditional functions that a library serves.

“Walking through the library is my son Aiden’s favorite activity on campus,” said William H. Grover, Assistant Professor in UCR’s Department of Bioengineering. “One day, the Maker Boxes caught Aiden’s eye. He couldn’t believe that there were Legos in the library at daddy’s work. In his eyes, UCR Library went from ‘the cool place where daddy hangs out all day’ to ‘the most awesome place in the universe,’” Will said with a smile. “I explained to him the basic idea behind the Maker Movement and told him how, at UCR, we don’t just teach students. We also try to create opportunities for students to be creative, inventive, and artistic, and the Maker Boxes are part of that. Aiden thought that was pretty awesome and asked how old you have to be to go to UCR.”

Collaborate with a Subject Specialist

If you have never collaborated with a subject specialist on your research papers or projects, you might find this resource vital to take your UCR learning experience to the next level.

“Making an appointment with a subject librarian can add depth to research projects and papers that students are already working on, and help them to navigate through the sea of information to the resources that are most relevant and useful to their specific work,” explained Dani Brecher Cook, Director of Teaching and Learning. “Students can also meet with subject specialists to learn about the wealth of resources in their field that are available to them as UCR students. Developing a relationship with your subject specialist can help you to succeed in your coursework, especially in higher-level courses, and enrich your understanding of your subject area.”

To make an appointment with a subject specialist, simply reach out to the person that matches your field of study by email or phone to set up a meeting time.

Check out a DVD or Video Game from our Media Collection

The Media Collection was moved from the Multimedia Library back in September 2016, and is now available on the first floor of Rivera Library for browsing.

Our Media Collection contains films and video games, which you can check out or use in the media viewing or gaming rooms on the second floor. Rivera Library also has individual viewing stations on the first floor.

You can also check out equipment at the Rivera Library Circulation/Reserves desk.

To reserve media viewing or gaming rooms in Rivera Library, visit the library website. On upper left of the home page menu, under “Using the Library,” navigate to “Study Spaces.” Once on that page, check the box for “Media Viewing” to see how many media viewing rooms we have available.

You can reserve study spaces online using Dibs. Rivera 227 and 228 are viewing rooms, and Rivera 229 and 230 are gaming rooms.

• Read more about About

• Read more about Special Collections & University Archives Reproductions Policy

More News March 21, 2023

Christopher Queen and Brandy Lewis were the first two SCUA graduate student interns and both of their experiences provide excellent examples of how these internships can benefit students and enhance their academic and professional goals.

• Read more about Special Collections & University Archives