Search
Search
Digital Collections
UCR Library Digital Collections contain digital gems for research, teaching, and learning.
UCR Library Celebrates Successful Completion of First Summer Digital Scholarship Program
The program provided undergraduate students with new skills and tools they’ll carry with them throughout their academic careers.
As a concept, digital scholarship broadly refers to the use of digital tools or methods for scholarly activities like research, teaching, and publishing. The goal is to leverage digital tools and platforms to enhance the traditional scholarly process.
UCR Library staff led 24 undergraduate students through a six-week digital scholarship program that saw the students explore primary sources from UCR's Special Collections & University Archives. This experience focused on student activism and BIPOC student voices from UCR’s past while also teaching the students valuable digital research skills.
Digital Scholarship Librarian Rachey Starry (who left the UCR Library in August 2023), Digital Initiatives Specialist Krystal Boehlert, Special Collections Public Services, Outreach & Community Engagement Librarian Sandy Enriquez, and Innovative Media Librarian Alvaro Alvarez led the effort to get the Digital Scholarship Program up and running for summer 2023 and are happy with the results.
“It was great to be able to share different skills, ideas, and techniques with the students,” Krystal said. “Being able to do a deep dive in the archives as an undergraduate is valuable — they gained practical research skills they’ll be able to apply in their courses moving forward.”
Students in the free, non-credit bearing program received hands-on training using different kinds of software to create and analyze digitized materials and produced their own findings about the past through workshops, lab sessions, and proposing their own digital exhibit.
The workshops offered covered a range of topics, which included: 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, and Close and Distant Reading: Quantitative Text Analysis for Archival Materials.
“My favorite was the Imaging workshop,” shared Bobbi Monae Mandour, an English major. “3D imaging and printing isn’t something that I had been exposed to. I’m not a techie, but it was great to learn 3D printing is something I can do here on campus.”
While at first glance it may seem like the program would only be of interest to undergraduate students in the humanities, students studying in other fields were also part of the program and found the experience rewarding.
“I’m a business major, but when I saw words like metadata and 3D/2D imaging, I was interested,” said Yumeng Yang. “I really liked the program and what I learned, plus it was free and it didn’t conflict with any classes.”
Many students are eager to apply the new skills and research methods they learned in the program to their own coursework.
"With the tools I learned in the program, I feel like I can really impress my professors,” said Samantha Lucero, a Sociology/Law and Society major reflecting on her own experience. “Having a better understanding of primary sources, different ways to cite, and research skills are things I’m excited to carry with me. "
This program provided a unique opportunity for undergraduates to access archives, explore digital research tools, and engage in hands-on learning. Students who participated in the program, like Samantha, recommend applying to the program if the UCR Library offers it again next summer.
“You’ll learn really useful skills you can use at UCR,” Samantha said. “And as someone interested in graduate school, I feel like I strengthened skills I’ll need for the future.”
New Resource Acquisitions: Winter-Spring 2020
The UCR Library is pleased to announce the following recent resource acquisitions:
Civil War Primary Resource Documents
Civil War Primary Source Documents from The New-York Historical Society contains unique manuscript material chronicling all aspects of the American Civil War from warfare on land, at sea, in hospitals and prison camps, and reactions and impressions of the War from the home front. The collection, comprised of more than 110,000 pages, focuses on the War as it was fought from 1861 to 1865 and represents both Northern and Southern perspectives.
Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books
Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society is a collection of more than 30,000 pages of historically unique material from more than 200 orderly books spanning from 1748 to 1817. The collection includes both British and American orderly books, a form of manuscript journals kept by military units containing their orders from higher-ranking officers in addition to other information essential to military operations, dating from the French and Indian War through the War of 1812, with the bulk representing the activities of American forces during the Revolutionary War.
Cannabis NewsBank
Cannabis NewsBank: Research Edition is a powerful, multi-disciplinary resource for students and researchers seeking information related to the cannabis and hemp industries. Its searchable database features current and historical news and information from more than 12,000 sources, including over three million cannabis and hemp related reports, documents and articles. This one-of- a-kind research tool features content from prominent cannabis and hemp industry publications as well as in-depth local coverage from every state in the United States, Canada, and countries across the globe.
New Sections of JoVE: The Journal of Visualized Experiments
JoVE is a video journal platform featuring videos that teach fundamental concepts and techniques for the lab. Via JoVE, researchers and students can view the intricate details of cutting-edge experiments rather than read them in text articles. The UCR Library has added two collections to our JoVE offerings: JoVe Science Education Chemistry & Advanced Biology and JoVE Immunology and Infection.
Henry Stewart Talks: Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection
HSTalks provides specially prepared, animated, online, audio-visual lectures, seminar-style talks and case studies. Editors and lecturers are leading world experts and practitioners, including Nobel Laureates, drawn from academia, research institutes, commerce, industry, the professions and government.
UK National Archives, Collections CO1 and CO5
Colonial State Papers
This collection, available on the ProQuest platform, includes Collection CO 1 from The UK National Archives, officially titled Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers and the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739.
Colonial America: Complete CO5 Files from UK National Archives, 1600-1822
Colonial America, via the Adam Matthew Platform, makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. The UCR Library has access to Module I: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries, and Module II: Towards Revolution. For more information on these modules, see http://www.colonialamerica.amdigital.co.uk/Introduction/NatureAndScope.
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
This diverse and comprehensive collection focuses on the cultural study of music and explores content from across the globe. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.
American Indian Newspapers
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, American Indian Newspapers contains nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the United States and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, this resource allows researchers to discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.
American Indian Newspapers was developed with, and has only been made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.
New Subjects from Oxford Bibliographies Online
The UCR Library has added six new topical areas to our Oxford Bibliographies Online collection:
-
African American Studies
-
Atlantic History
-
Buddhism
-
Environmental Science
-
Philosophy
-
Sociology
Oxford Bibliographies are developed cooperatively with scholars and librarians worldwide, and offer exclusive, authoritative research guides across a variety of subject areas. The Oxford Bibliographies combine the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia and direct researchers to the best available scholarship in a given subject. The UCR Library also has access to the following Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology, Art History, Chinese Studies, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Latin American Studies, Latinx Studies, Music, Psychology, and Public Health.
National History Day Learning Lab Held at UCR
UCR Library co-sponsors National History Day Learning Lab in collaboration with National Archives at Riverside and Orange County Department of Education
The event, aimed at assisting 6th through 12th grade students with their National History Day projects, was held at UCR on Saturday, November 7th. Educators, archivists, and students from throughout Southern California participated in the day-long event that featured sessions on a variety of topics, including research methods, how to conduct oral histories, and locating primary, secondary, and online resources. Students were also offered research consultations with an archivist or librarian to assist them with their projects.
Dr. Alexander Haskell, Associate Professor of History at UCR, set the tone for the day with his keynote address emphasizing the importance of historical research. UCR librarians Christina Cicchetti and Eric Milenkiewicz were also available to assist with the various sessions and research consultations offered to the students. The day's activities concluded with tours of the Rivera Library exhibit space and the Special Collections & University Archives reading room.
Intersession Hours and Winter Break Closure
The UCR Library facilities will adopt an intersession schedule starting on Saturday, December 16, 2017.
During intersession (from December 16 to December 22), library hours will be as follows:
Tomás Rivera Library and Orbach Science Library
- Monday - Friday: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
- Saturday: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
- Sunday: closed
Special Collections & University Archives
- Monday - Friday: by appointment only
- Saturday & Sunday: closed
Music Library
- Monday - Friday: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
- Saturday & Sunday: closed
In addition, UC Riverside plans to observe a Winter Holiday Closure during the 2017-2018 holiday season. This annual closure has allowed UCR to achieve significant energy savings and continues to be a highly effective approach to power conservation for a specific period of time.
The library will close for winter break from Saturday, December 23, 2017 until Monday, January 1, 2018.
UCR Library will reopen on Tuesday, January 2, 2018. Special Collections & University Archives will remain appointment-only until Monday, January 8, 2018.
For the most up-to-date information, please refer to the Hours page.
Soldadera: Creative Research in the Archives of the Mexican Revolution
On Jan. 21, UC Riverside professor Jennifer Doyle and internationally recognized artist Nao Bustamante will discuss the genesis of Bustamante’s multi-media exhibition, Soldadera.
This virtual presentation will be the fourth installment of the UCR Library’s series, Faculty Profiles in Research, Art and Innovation. Dr. Romina Robles Ruvalcaba, assistant professor of history at UC Merced, will serve as moderator.
Soldadera (Spanish for “female soldiers”) returns to southern California on Jan. 21, and will remain open through Mar. 28, 2021 at the S/A Exhibitions gallery in Santa Ana. The exhibition highlights a variety of Bustamante’s artwork inspired by the women who fought in the Mexican Revolution, including artistic transformations of several digitized photographs from UCR Library’s Special Collections. Since its debut in 2015 at the Vincent Price Art Museum in East Los Angeles, it has traveled to New York, Mexico City, San Diego, San Francisco, and Marfa.
In 2014, Bustamante turned to UCR's extensive collection of photography and other materials covering the Mexican Revolution, focused particularly on women's role in this segment of Mexican history. Doyle curated this exhibition and supported it by editing a series of essays published on KCET's website, exploring the artist's process and the historical context for this project, born from a 2015 meeting between Bustamante and Leandra Becerra Lumbreras in Guadalajara. During the Mexican Revolution, Lumbreras served as an Adelita, providing quartermaster support for revolutionary fighters. When they first met in 2015, Lumbreras was the oldest living person at age 127.
The exhibition opening at the S/A Exhibitions gallery is scheduled for 4:00 - 10:00 p.m. on the same date as the virtual presentation, Jan. 21. Due to COVID-related restrictions, the opening reception will be limited to eight guests at a time. Those interested in scheduling a viewing time must email the gallery in advance.
Now Available: Ancestral Futures Arts & Literary Magazine
The inaugural issue of Ancestral Futures is now available
Ancestral Futures is an arts & literary magazine published by Special Collections & University Archives that invited contributors to reimagine the archive through artistic lenses such as poetry, creative writing, photography, and collage.
This year’s theme was on inclusive speculative fields such as Afrofuturism, Latinx/Chicanx Futurisms, and Indigenous Futurisms. Each piece is inspired by archives, including those held at UCR and on Calisphere.
We invite you to dive in and explore these fantastic re-imaginings of the archive by viewing the digital zine, available here:
https://scalar.usc.edu/works/ancestral-futures/index
In addition, free print copies of Ancestral Futures will be available for pick-up at UCR Special Collections & University Archives while supplies last (one per person) until Friday, June 14 at 4 p.m.
To get your copy, visit Special Collections on the fourth floor of Rivera Library during open hours (10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Monday through Friday) until Friday, June 14. No need to register in advance, walk-ins are welcome.
If you have questions, please reach out to project organizer and librarian, Sandy Enriquez, at sandy.enriquez@ucr.edu.