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Celebrating our Class of 2019 library student employees
As the second-largest student employer on campus, each spring the UCR Library takes time to celebrate the students who comprise half of our staff team.
At the annual Student Employee and Staff Appreciation Luncheon held in the lower courtyard at Rivera Library, we also recognized these 25 library student employees who will graduate with UC Riverside’s Class of 2019: Alma Ramos, Andrea Mares, Anthony Valverde, Cameron Tuck, Chia Wu, Cindy Chau, Daniel Chen, Dulce Melo, Gursimran Singh, Hana Tran, Jacqueline Hernandez, Janice Liu, Jessica Leon, Jose Peralta, Kaitlyn Lara, Margaret Gardner, Matthew Diep, Matthew Garrido, Matthew Moreno, Noah Nguyen, Patrick Zydziak, Reajinae Jenkins, Roger Peralta Gomez, Serena Rodholm, and Sergio Banegas.
We asked our 2019 graduates to share their favorite memories from their time spent working at the UCR Library, and what they would miss most about working here. Here are some of their responses:
"I have worked at Rivera Library since my very first weeks of my first year of being at UC Riverside, so I have a lot of great memories from these past 4 years. It took me a while to pick my favorite one, so I would have to say my favorite memory from working at the library is being able to see our wonderful diversity at this school. I come from a place where there are predominately Asian and Hispanic people and not much diversity. The Rivera Library is one of the most visited places on campus, so I was able to see many different students, staff, and visitors. After my first month working here, it was nice to see how diverse our campus is and I wish the world was more like it. Four years later, I believe I have assisted and encountered almost all the ethnic groups around the world and it's a pretty great achievement. I myself come from Poland and I do not think I have met another individual from there at UCR, but that just shows the diversity of the campus. I wish I had the time to get to know these different ethnic groups better, but I cherish the short conversations I was able to have. I think what I will miss most about working here is being able to actually encounter and talk to a diverse community. Working at the library gave me an excuse to talk to and meet people. I cannot think of any other way to be able to talk to these people unless I go up to anyone on campus and introduce myself to anyone who walks by me but that is obviously out of the norm. The food industry also experiences many different people, however, it is a much faster paced environment and gives workers not much time to see around them. I'm not sure if my future career after graduation will have a diverse community like this, so that is something I will surely miss from working at the UCR Library. " - Patrick Zydziak
"My favorite memory from working at the library is actually a collection of memories. I loved running into my professors while working at the desk. I enjoyed having conversations with them about what books they were reading, any literature recommendations they had, etc. I also enjoyed being helpful to those who were helpful to me in the classroom. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to give back to professors who have given you so much. It was also crazy to see how much they read! I am going to miss my coworkers and supervisors the most. I have been working at the library since I started undergrad and because of this, my coworkers have become close friends. We always catch up with one another during our shifts. Even outside of the library we are texting one another, making each other laugh. We are a group of students from different backgrounds, different majors, different years -- but we are all connected by our love for the library. I will especially miss my boss Leslie Settle. She always emphasizes how we are a family and we look out for one another. She would continuously go out of her way to help her student employees, and she would give us cute treats for each holiday! Her laugh is contagious and her smile lights up the room. It is truly bittersweet to leave such a caring group of people." - Andrea Mares
"It is really difficult to pick a favorite memory from working at the library because there were so many fun moments from collection maintenance projects to staff potluck events. If I had to pick one, it would have to be getting to serve pie to fellow students on Pi Day. I got to smile at stressed students during week 10 and wish them good luck on their finals while handing them free food. Moments like those made my job at the library more special. I think I am going to miss all of the friendly people I have had the opportunity to work with. It has been really fun to interact with new faces every year." - Jessica Leon
"My favorite memories are the crazy finals week festivities. I loved helping set up events to lighten the mood, listening and motivating patrons to push through until school break, and seeing all the funny things patrons would resort to sleeping on. Finals week brings a bittersweet sense of community feeling to the library as it is stressful because we all have important deadlines and tests to take, but comforting because we're all going through similar struggles. The thing I'll miss most about about working here at the library is how much the career staff here supports and cares for the student workers. It is so easy to get adjusted to working here because the staff is so helpful and friendly. I have never seen another workplace that praises and supports their workers as much as they do here. Shoutout to everyone working in circulation, you guys are wonderful." - Anthony Valverde
"Even though it was a stressful time for myself, students and staff alike (as they had to organize and put on a variety of events), my favorite memories are usually associated during the Finals Week Stress Relief events. I enjoyed working finals week because of the various events we had to host. It felt really good to see how grateful students were when we handed out food, scantrons, UCR gear, etc. My favorite event was probably working Therapy Fluffies. The dogs were honestly the best and always brought a smile to my face. I will probably miss the staff the most. My supervisor, Elisha Hankins, gave me so many opportunities to be a leader, grow, and flourish both academically and professionally. She hired me for my first real job and I will be forever grateful she took a chance on me. I will also miss the other staff; they were also so welcoming, available, and ready to help me with whatever assignment or life decision I needed to make. The environment was always cheery and even on the not so good days, they were always there to make it a little better." - Alma Ramos-Gutierrez
"Working at Special Collections has been one of the most formative experiences of my collegiate experience. I have made some of the closest friends working at the UCR Library that have influenced my life for the better." - Kaitlyn Lara
"My favorite memory from working at the library is when I helped out with the Therapy Fluffies, and was able to hold them! Something that I will miss the most from working at the library will be the people. Everyone is so kind and makes you feel welcome every time you enter the circulation desk." - Jacqueline Hernandez
Professor Paul Chou Collection
Located in: Tomás Rivera Library
Paul Chou (1914-2000), chemist, teacher, and book collector, was born in Qingdao, educated at Peking University, and had a life-long love of Chinese literature and history. His collection of 2,455 volumes was given to the UCR Library in 2004 by his daughter, Huiping Cheng.
Highlights of the collection:
UCR Library at the California Libraries Association Annual Conference
On Nov. 2-4, several UCR Library staff members contributed programs and poster sessions for the California Libraries Association (CLA) Annual Conference in Riverside, CA. The 2017 conference theme was, “New Worlds Emerge.”
Maker Services Librarian Krista Ivy, Open Research Librarian Michele Potter, and Data Librarian Kat Koziar gave a presentation session called From Zero to Makerspace: The UC Riverside Creat’R Lab Story. “It was well attended, and the audience was engaged with what we presented,” Koziar said.
Data Librarian Kat Koziar, Special Collections Public Services Assistant Zayda Delgado, Head of Preservation Services Patricia Smith-Hunt, Preservation Assistant Sara Stilley, and Director of Distinctive Collections Cherry Williams collaborated on a poster presentation titled, New Technologies, New Worlds. The poster showed the evolution of books across a timeline from 2500 BCE to present day, highlighting the most significant inventions used to create, package, disseminate, and access information.
“We took several items from our teaching collection and people who stopped by got to see and touch the transformative technologies our poster highlighted,” Delgado said. “Conference attendees really enjoyed the hands-on experience.”
Social Sciences Teaching Librarian Christina Cicchetti gave a poster presentation called Promoting School Readiness Through Diverse Children’s Books, which she prepared in collaboration with Dr. Ashaunta Anderson, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the UCR School of Medicine and Principal Investigator for the Cultural Pride Reinforcement for Early School Readiness research project; Sharon Rushing, PhD candidate in the UCR Department of Anthropology; and Dr. Annette Goldsmith, Lecturer at the University of Washington Information School.
“The study will distribute books to children during well-child visits to their pediatrician,” explained Cicchetti, who serves with Goldsmith on a community advisory board that helped to select books used in the study and prepared an informational handout for parents.
University Programs Teaching Librarian Judy Lee organized and led a Riverside Asian American Walking Tour on Sunday, Nov. 5, after the CLA Conference concluded.
Carla Arbagey, Collection Strategist for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) led a tour of the UCR Library for attendees from the CLA conference.
“I had a lot of fun showing off our libraries and our campus,” Arbagey said. “Of course, the highlight of the tour was our visit to Special Collections and University Archives, and everyone was excited to see the home of the Eaton Collection.” Katz shared program goals and findings for 4 to Explore, along with the featured items from the current and prior months.
When showing Project Bi Nary by Steven McCarthy (nicknamed the “pillow book” by library staff), a recent acquisition from the September road show with Vamp & Tramp Artists Booksellers, Arbagey had an a-ha! moment: “I saw how one item from our collection can show how the seemingly disparate departments in our library are actually very connected.” The tour group first encountered it when they met with Patricia Smith-Hunt in Preservation, who explained how Preservation creates custom-made, acid free boxes to store special collections items.
Then in Special Collections, Katz explained that she had suggested the book as a purchase because it could be featured as part of a Creat'R Lab event on crafting and artists' books.
“So, you can see how our tour, which went from the Creat'R Lab to Preservation to SCUA, could be connected by this single (and very cool) book!” Arbagey concluded.
Presentation inspires student to donate personal book collection
A fall quarter 2020 library presentation inspired a current UC Riverside student to donate his personal book collection to Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).
On Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, Sandy Enriquez, Special Collections Public Services, Outreach & Community Engagement Librarian, and Andrew Lippert, Special Collections Processing Archivist, co-presented “On Slash Fanfiction and Yaoi Manga: Fandom and Sexuality in the Archives.”
During their presentation, Enriquez and Lippert gave a general introduction to the worlds of slash fanfiction and yaoi manga, also known as boys' love or BL; discussed how these items first arrived at the UCR Library and the emerging scholarship involving these important materials at UCR; and elucidated the reasons behind why the library hopes to collect more in the future.
“Slash and BL fandoms focus on romantic and/or sexual relationships between fictional male characters,” Enriquez explained. “Academic scholars have researched the impact and culture of slash and BL fandom for many years, but it wasn't until recently that they started incorporating a Feminist and Queer Theory lens to this research. From this lens, we now know that slash and BL fandoms are far more fluid and diverse than originally thought.”
The student donor, who wished to remain anonymous, shared what inspired him to gift his personal library to Special Collections: "I always thought that the history of our age would be written decades in the future, but attending a BL/slash event showed me that the work of analysis and preservation is happening now. That there was an enthusiastic community eager to delve into the whys and hows of something that has impacted my life. There are people that care enough about Boys Love and slash fiction to warrant a budding field of research. And I wanted to contribute to this wonderful project somehow, so I decided to make these books I've enjoyed available in the UCR Library."
According to Enriquez, other fans of slash or BL in the UC Riverside community are welcome to send their recommendations for this genre to SCUA staff at specialcollections@ucr.edu. “We hope to increase the BL manga collection at UCR and appreciate your suggestions,” she said.
The slash fanfiction and yaoi manga online event was co-sponsored by the UCR LGBT Resource Center and Asian Pacific Student Programs. Eighty-three members of the UCR community registered to attend. The replay is now available on the SCUA events page, along with other recent recordings of presentations by SCUA employees.
Recent professional achievements by library staff
Join us as we celebrate these recent achievements by the following UCR Library employees.
Dan Szilagyi, Manager of Cyberinfrastructure recently completed the UC Information Technology Leadership Academy (UCITLA), taught by faculty at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. UCITLA is an intensive learning experience that consisted of two three-day sessions in February and May 2019, along with a team project that was completed in between sessions. Szilagyi participated in the fourth UCITLA cohort.
Participants learned about strategic leadership, innovation and change management; networked with peers to support collaboration and innovation initiatives across the UC system; and prepared to guide staff through change, challenge and opportunity.
UC Riverside’s CIO Danna Gianforte nominated Szilagyi for UCITLA 2019. He said, “UCITLA was excellent and eye-opening, particularly in the area of innovation. The people were amazing to work with.”
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Elisha Hankins, Orbach Library’s Access Services Desk Coordinator recently completed her Professional Academic Advisor Certification Course (PAACC), a 10-month comprehensive professional development program that teaches the history, practice and art of academic advising, including the crucial role that academic advisors play in student success, building student-centered and responsibility-sharing relationships, and honing the advisor’s conceptual, informational and relational skills.
Hankins’ role keeps her working closely with dozens of library student employees in Access Services, which is what first piqued her interest in PAACC. “A traditional academic advisor only interacts with their students once per quarter, and that’s if their students are proactive. I work with my students 20 hours a week. PAACC gave me tools and resources to use in my current job,” she said.
“The people that I end up hiring tend to be the ones who want to be world-changers or world-shakers, the ones who want to make a difference,” she added.
The PAACC program also provided skills for working with library patrons. As Hankins explained, “Because we work at the Circulation Desk, people think we’re their best friends, so they’ll tell us their life stories. So we can put these skills into practice with the patrons we assist, as well.”
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Cataloging Librarian Ruben Urbizagastegui recently published “Analysis of El Niño Coastal phenomenon by the method of associated words.”(Ciência da Informação. 2019, v. 48, n. 2.). In this paper, he compared two articles about the local weather phenomenon that affects the coasts of Peru and Ecuador. “El Niño causes a mess all over the world, with typhoons in India and droughts in Australia and California,” he explained. “But the Incas already knew of this phenomenon and knew how to control it.”
The articles he contrasted were written by two of the most prestigious newspapers in Peru -- one government-owned and the other privately owned. He noted the impact of socio-economic influence on the written word. “We analyzed the information, expecting to find two different perspectives, but we found only one,” he said. “In other words, the newspapers don’t care about the people. They do what they do to protect their own interests.”
Urbizagastegui has worked at the UCR Library for 30 years and has published eight books in that time. Additionally, he regularly reviews articles for five or six different library scientific journals. Most of his work has been published in Spanish or Portuguese on issues that affect marginalized communities.
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In May 2019, Raul Aguilera, Access Services Assistant (Evenings) at Rivera Library completed his Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree with San Jose State University. He began his career as a work-study student at Orbach Library in January 2014, while working toward his Bachelor’s degree in English at UC Riverside (class of 2015).
“Originally, I wanted to be an English professor,” Aguilera said. As a student, he saw the value of the services that the library provided and the research that librarians do; so he began to envision a different career path in academia. Aguilera believes that his life experience as a UCR student gives him an added perspective about which kinds of library services would be most valuable to our patrons.
“I really like giving service, and if someone leaves the desk happy, I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” he added. “I think that’s just part of my nature, being able to contribute in a higher capacity, going above and beyond whenever I’m able to.”
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Judy Lee, University Programs Teaching Librarian co-wrote a chapter,“Remembering Consciousness is Power: Working to Center Academic Library Outreach in the Service of Social Justice, Asian and Pacific Islander American Ethnic Visibility, and Coalition-Building,” in Cura, Yago S, and Max Macias. Librarians with Spines: Information Agitators in an Age of Stagnation: Volume II. Los Angeles: Hinchas Press, 2019. Lee co-wrote the chapter in collaboration with Melissa Cardenas-Dow, a former colleague at the UCR Library who is now a librarian at California State University, Sacramento.
Librarians with Spines is the second volume in a radical book of essays and chapters on library issues and topics related to emerging and marginalized communities, and is available for purchase on Amazon.