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Library Team Presents at Homecoming Panel
Three UCR Library employees presented as part of a Homecoming panel at the Campus Showcase Exhibit – Working on Campus on Saturday, November 19, 2016.
Library Human Resources Generalist Wendy Williams-Clark spoke as part of the employers panel, and members of the student employee panel included library student assistants Mohammed Jawara, a Political Science Law and Society major, and Sarah Ready, a double major in Business and Dance. Both are undergraduate students in the class of 2019. Attendees included incoming and current UC Riverside students as well as parents of prospective and current students.
On the student employee panel, Mohammed and Sarah shared their perspectives about working on campus and discussed how the job skills they learn will help to prepare them for success after graduation. Mohammed explained, “The majority of the jobs offered on campus impart onto students valuable skills that will come in very handy in their future careers.”
Sarah explained, “Although each position offered at the panel has numerous workers, the library is where student workers form more of a team or community rather than just a co-worker relationship.” Mohammed agreed, “One of the reasons why I like working at the library is because I get the opportunity to be part of a very supportive library staff team. Another reason is because I get the opportunity to help and also interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds.”
For Sarah, there are more benefits still. “I like working in the Library because I’m fascinated by books,” she said. “Although information is at our fingertips with the internet, I think that there’s value in picking up a book, flipping through the pages and finding the information on your own, and I encourage students to do so.”
“The student employees love working for UC Riverside,” Wendy commented. “They genuinely appreciate being able to contribute in any way they can. They are the front-line of customer service, no matter what department they work in, and they said that they’re learning real-world skills in a way they never could if they were working somewhere else.”
The employers panel addressed questions about requirements for students to get jobs in different departments, what to do if a student has no prior work experience, how to apply for on-campus jobs, application materials and best practices, work-life balance for student employees, and how scheduling works with student class schedules.
“It was fascinating to hear how all the different departments feel about their student employees,” Wendy said. “The library couldn’t function without ours, and it was great to hear that other departments feel the same way.”
Director of Research Services Presents on SPARC Panel
On June 15, 2017, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) hosted the first in a series of professional development webcasts for librarians who advocate for openness in research and education on their campuses.
UCR Library’s own Director of Research Services, Brianna Marshall, was a presenter on their June webcast, Scrappy Strategies: Advancing Open on Campus with Limited Resources. Her co-presenters were Anita Walz of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Micah Vandegrift of Florida State University.
The webcast identified high-yield action steps for advancing open access, open education, and open data / data management on campus, with strategies to increase impact even when challenged by limited time or funding.
“Open access to publications, data sets, and educational materials creates a more equitable scholarly ecosystem, which in turn can facilitate breakthroughs to benefit society,” Marshall explained. “Many of us have been in the frustrating situation of identifying an ideal resource for our research, only to find that it’s locked behind a paywall. While the UCR Library strives to provide access to as many quality databases as possible, libraries are burdened with rising journal costs that make this difficult.”
Support for open research is an integral part of Marshall’s approach to librarianship. “I believe it should be a critical value of libraries,” she added. “Federal funders now require grant seekers to share resulting publications and data sets openly. The UCR Library can provide guidance on making your research more open, so reach out to us if you’d like to hear more!”
Both a replay of the webcast and the presentation slides are available online. A follow-up discussion via live Twitter chat will take place on July 13 at 12:00 pm PST, using the hashtag #OpenPros.
Newly Processed Collections – Fall 2018
Special Collections & University Archives staff are constantly working to process recently acquired collections and make those materials ready for use by students, faculty, and researchers.
Each quarter, we will provide a list of the UCR Library's newly processed archival and primary source collections. Check out the list below to see if there are any items that fit your research area, or share with a friend!
Below you'll find brief descriptions and links to the finding aids or collection guides for each new collection. To use any of these materials, simply click the "Request Items" button at the top to submit a request, and log in with our Special Collections Request System. For more on conducting research in Special Collections, see this page.
SCUA is open to the public on weekdays from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Check here for closures or other changes to our regular hours.
For questions, email specialcollections@ucr.edu.
Newly Processed Collections - Fall 2018
University of California, Riverside Pesticide Waste Pits records (WRCA 280)
The UCR Pesticide Waste Pits records document some of the early agricultural research at the Citrus Experiment Station, prior to the founding of UCR, and the environmental remediation project of the Pesticide Waste Pits in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Nalo Hopkinson papers (MS 386)
Nalo Hopkinson is a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside and an award-winning Jamaican and Canadian science fiction & fantasy writer. She is a pioneering figure of the Afrofuturism and Alternative Futurism movements. This collection is focused on Hopkinson’s literary works and includes a number of manuscripts, publications from her tenures as an editor, and other materials associated with her activities in SF&F circles.
Robert V. Hine papers (UA 083)
Robert V. Hine was a founding professor of the University of California, Riverside in the History Department. This collection documents his work as a professor of history and his interests in the American frontier, borderlands, socialist cooperatives, and the Irvine Ranch. Also included in this collection are documents on the establishment of early humanities curriculum and academic senate records of UC Riverside.
Harriet E. Huntington papers (MS 221) – check catalog record for updated marc entry
This collection documents the work of children’s book author and photographer Harriet Huntington. Materials in the collection include photographs, negatives, and drafts of her works on topics including music, plants, animals, and the Yosemite Valley.
Sabino Osuna photographs (MS 028)
Sabino Osuna was a professional photographer in Mexico City during the early 20th century. This collection of photographs represents his work documenting the Mexican Revolution, primarily between 1910 and 1914, and many of the images were published in a book titled: Mexico at the Hour of Combat: Sabino Osuna’s Photographs of the Mexican Revolution. This collection has also been digitized and is accessible on the California Digital Library.
Carobeth Laird papers (MS 109)
Carobeth Laird was an anthropologist, linguist, and ethnographer most known for her work studying the Chemehuevi people of southeastern California and western Arizona. Laird’s collection includes manuscripts, press clippings and other materials from her career working with the Chemehuevi. There are also materials from Lynn Laredo, the author of Laird’s documentary, as well as personal materials, including from her first marriage to the ethnologist John Peabody Harrington.
John Franceschina papers (MS 422)
The collection consists of materials from author and theater history scholar John Franceschina relating to two of his publications: Incidental and Dance Music in the American Theatre from 1786 to 1923, and Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire. Items in the collection include research files, musical scores, programs, photographs, news clippings, publications, and videos.
Loda Mae Davis papers (UA 082)
The Loda Mae Davis papers document the professional life of Loda Mae Davis, the first Dean of Women at UC Riverside. This collection also contains the records of the Loda Mae Davis women’s archives which conducted oral history interviews to document women in academia at UCR during the 20th century.
UCR Library implements Yewno Discover for AI-powered research
The UCR Library is experimenting with an innovative research tool that offers users a new way of viewing and discovering information.
Artificial intelligence-powered research has landed at UC Riverside with the library’s adoption of Yewno Discover. The new research tool aims to help users perform meaningful research in a short amount of time.
How does Yewno Discover work? Enter a concept into Yewno Discover and users will see a knowledge map. The primary concept searched for appears as a prominent node in the center of the map and is surrounded by smaller nodes representing connected (or secondary) concepts. These secondary concepts appear due to Yewno Discover’s built-in AI that ingests and scans information from sources like Wikipedia to deliver related concepts that may aid the user in their research.
Once a primary or secondary node is selected, the user will be able to read a brief overview of the concept, view additional information on related concepts, and access documents on the concept, such as articles and books, that take a user directly to the relevant parts of the text.
For certain users, what may have taken hours of searching using traditional methods might just take a single research session on Yewno Discover.
“People think and learn differently,” explained Michele Potter, the UCR Library’s Collection Strategist for STEM. “With Yewno Discover, the idea is to offer people a new way to see and use information.”
Potter has been working with Yewno Discover to refine and optimize the research platform to better serve the needs of the UCR community. She hopes to receive feedback from UCR users on what they enjoy about the tool and suggestions for improvement.
Unlike other research engines, Yewno Discover’s emphasis is on exploration. While some may prefer conventional research methods, Yewno Discover’s unique way of allowing users to engage with information can be valuable for the more inquisitive.
While using the tool, if a user notices a secondary concept they are not aware of, or the user is simply curious about what these concepts have in common, users can “generate a relationship” between a primary and secondary concept to see what the two selected concepts have in common.
“Yewno Discover is particularly useful to use when trying to understand relationships between concepts,” Potter said. "It's a way of exploring a concept that's very holistic. Maybe you won’t learn in a linear fashion, but at the end of the day, you're probably going to have a pretty thorough understanding of the concept you searched for.”
UCR students, faculty, and researchers can try out this innovative discovery tool right from the search bar at library.ucr.edu. Type in a concept and the user can connect to Yewno Discover along with UC Library Search, WorldCat Discovery, and other research resources. Users can also visit discover.yewno.com.
If you want to learn more about Yewno Discover, read the library’s Yewno Discover Guide.
UCR Library Hosting Virtual Workshops for UC-Wide Love Data Week Series
The UCR Library is joining universities across the UC system for UC Love Data Week, a series of virtual workshops and presentations running Feb. 9–13, 2026.
This week-long celebration offers free online sessions designed to build essential data skills for University of California students, faculty, and researchers at all experience levels.
Leading the effort for UCR is Dr. Barbara Martinez Neda, a Research Data Scientist in the Library’s Research Services department who joined the team in summer 2025. This year marks her first time presenting on behalf of UCR. Barbara and the Research Services Team will cover a variety of data-related topics, ranging from exploring strategies for finding public health data and AI-assisted data visualization to hardware-oriented sessions on Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
Barbara hopes participants will discover the vast potential that working with data offers. “You can process research datasets with a wide variety of tools and methodologies, and the insights you can draw from them are virtually endless,” Barbara said. “Being able to draw conclusions from hard numbers is fascinating because data represents facts and experimental ground truth rather than just an opinion." She encourages the entire UCR community to participate regardless of their background, adding, "We're so excited to share our love for data with the community, so please don't feel intimidated to attend a session even if you don't have much experience with the topic."
All UC Love Data Week events are free and virtual. To explore the full schedule, visit the UC Love Data Week website.
Beyond UC Love Data Week, Barbara offers year-round support for all your research data needs including depositing in UC’s data research repository, Data Dryad. From data research management planning and organization to processing, analysis, and sharing, Barbara can provide assistance throughout the research data lifecycle. Learn more and schedule a consultation with Barbara on the UCR Library Data Services webpage.
Director of Research Services releases first book
UCR Library’s Director of Research Services Brianna Marshall has released her first book, The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving.
Editor Marshall and a team of expert contributors break down archival concepts and best practices into teachable solutions for digitally archiving everyday projects. This book could serve anyone from a researcher who needs to organize important email correspondence, to an empty-nester who wants to convert home movies and photographs into a more easily shared digital format.
Marshall hopes that the book will serve as a practical, how-to resource for anyone faced with “decision fatigue” when considering how to manage the massive quantity of digital photos, audios, videos, websites, and social media files they possess.
“This was me trying to bridge the gap that I saw to serve the community that we work with,” Marshall explained. “A lot of it also comes from the fact that I have been a collector of things since I was a small child. I’m the family historian. I’m a scrap-booker. I’ve been collecting photos, and I’ve had my fair share of errors. I know the professional way to do this, but it’s not feasible for me to do in my personal life. It was really about posing that question, ‘How do we take what we know and apply it to our communities in a better and more accessible way?’”
In the near future, Marshall hopes to blend her crafty side with her professional side by hosting a workshop in the Creat’R Lab along with library colleagues Primary Source Literacy Librarian Robin M. Katz and Digital Initiatives Program Manager Eric Milenkiewicz. “We’re hoping to do something with personal digital archiving in the spring,” she said.
The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving is available for purchase at Amazon.com, the ALA store, and other online retailers.
Arabic manuscript leaves described through community collaboration
The UCR Library staff experimented with crowdsourcing to describe a collection of 50 Arabic manuscript leaves and facilitate their electronic discovery.
At two events called “Hivemind,” the library hosted more than 50 UC Riverside community members with a knowledge of Arabic and/or the Quran.
At the first event in May 2018, attendees helped to identify, transcribe, and describe the content of those newly-acquired original manuscripts. Dr. Imad Bayoun, staff research associate in the Entomology Department and faculty advisor to the Muslim Student Association, also gave a brief talk on the history of calligraphy in Islam.
During the second event in April 2019, attendees previewed the newly digitized collection, and library staff collected feedback on how to improve the descriptions accompanying the digitized images, which will help researchers to find and use these materials.
“It was a joy to see so many members of our campus community connect and learn from each other,” said Robin M. Katz, Primary Source Literacy Teaching Librarian and organizer of the Hivemind events.
This digitized collection was recently published online through Calisphere and made available for scholarly research. Find it under the heading Historical Artifacts Collection from UCR: calisphere.org/collections/27117/
The online collection will eventually contain more examples of manuscript and printed leaves and gatherings in Western and non-Western languages, calligraphy and scripts.
Staff from across the library, including members of Special Collections and University Archives, Teaching & Learning, Metadata & Technical Services, and Digitization Services collaborated on the digital collection and helped to facilitate both Hivemind events. The events were co-sponsored by the UCR Library, the Middle East Student Center and the Muslim Student Association at UC Riverside.
“This is just the beginning,” Katz added. “Now that these materials are online, we hope to learn more about when and where the manuscripts originated.” She encouraged scholars and community members to explore and use the digital collection, and then to reach out to the UCR Library to share their thoughts.
Klein photo gallery sparks delight and discussion among science fiction fans
When Calisphere released the online gallery of 5,933 recently digitized photos from the Jay Kay Klein photographs and papers on science fiction fandom last week, the UCR Library’s team was thrilled with the rapid response of the science fiction fan community.
Within 15 hours of publication, chats about the images lit up fan blogs, including Mike Glyer’s site, File770.
A science fiction fan, Klein photographed many events during the 1960s and 1970s, including “Worldcon.” Klein donated these photographs, which were part of his $3.5 million estate, to the UCR Library in 2014.
“We’re a large but tight-knit community and we love our history,” said David M. Stein. “Since this archive went live, we've been pointing out images, lots of ‘OH MY, that's <so-and-so>,’ and ‘Hey Anne, were you ever THAT young?’”
Some fans were understandably frustrated that individuals were misidentified in some of the picture captions, but the overwhelming majority were delighted as they found many familiar faces and fond memories among the sea of photos.
Library staff received emails from many fans, graciously offering to provide additional information about the people and events pictured “before all those who attended the conventions have shuffled off this mortal coil,” as Maggie Thompson so aptly stated.
“NYCon III was my first world convention,” wrote John-Henri Holmberg. “I'm amused to more or less recognize my youthful self in a few of Jay Kay Klein's photos.”
JJ Jacobson, the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, has had many conversations with fans about the photos since the gallery went up on Calisphere. “We knew there were flaws,” she commented. “We also knew it would be possible to crowdsource, but we had no idea that the SF community would be so magnificently generous. We weren’t ready for the flood, but we’re ecstatic that it’s happening.”
To give perspective on the “flood,” Digital Initiatives Program Manager Eric Milenkiewicz shared these statistics: In the last week of August, UCR collections on Calisphere received 33,557 pageviews (25,407 unique), which is far beyond those received in a typical week.
“The impact that this collection has had thus far is remarkable,” Milenkiewicz added. “Our pageview statistics on Calisphere have just soared over the past seven days, with much of this traffic attributed to the Klein photos!”
Glyer has generously offered to use File770 to help spread the word among the Science Fiction community about how fans can submit corrections to the photo captions.
“We knew there were some issues with the metadata before we put it up,” explained Cherry Williams, Director of Distinctive Collections. “But what’s important to us is that this is a vibrant, living project that’s going to continue to move and breathe and evolve.”
Fans who want to contribute corrections and/or enhancements for the Klein photo captions can submit them through this form, which was created for this project by Digital Assets Metadata Librarian, Noah Geraci.
Jacobson offers one word of caution to those who wish to help with the metadata corrections: “It will not show up immediately [on Calisphere] because we need to validate, in case two different people give us conflicting information.”
Williams, Jacobson, Milenkiewicz, and Geraci are already thinking ahead to how the library can improve the integration of crowdsourced metadata in the future, as there are more than 55,000 of Klein’s images that have not yet been digitized.
“I knew Jay Kay Klein back in the day (and may appear in some of his photos),” Dennis McCunney commented via email. “I think he'd be delighted at the response to his work. I certainly am.”
This project will continue to grow, but it would not be possible without financial donations. Should you feel inspired to support the digitization of more of Klein’s photographs, please contact Jernine McBride, Associate Director of Development for the UCR Library, to discuss how you can help to move this project forward.
Supporting Student Success Through CHASS F1RST
The UCR Library plays an important role in supporting CHASS F1RST, a student success program in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS) that helps first-year freshman and transfer students adjust to college life.
On the library’s end, this collaboration is led by Student Success and Engagement Librarian Carrie Cruce and Social Sciences Teaching Librarian Michael Yonezawa.
The UCR Library contributes to the program in two key ways: by embedding information literacy modules into CHASS F1RST courses—CHFY 007 for freshmen and CHFY 010 for transfer students—and by providing research skills training to the program’s peer mentors through the library’s WRI (Workshop-Related Instruction) Research Ready program.
Rather than having students come to the library, the team meets them where they are. “Our modules are integrated into their Canvas courses, and our training for peer mentors happens in their space,” Carrie said.
First-year students often face challenges navigating implicit or unspoken academic expectations, a concept sometimes referred to as the “hidden curriculum.” According to Carrie, this includes understanding self-advocacy, seeking help, and utilizing campus resources.
“Our collaboration with CHASS F1RST is one of the avenues we have to support students in building academic support networks, cultivating help-seeking skills, and understanding the role and resources of campus support departments like the library,” Carrie explains.
Michael noted that first-year students—and in some cases, new transfer students—are often not aware of the vast resources and services a modern academic library provides. “The challenge for these students is to learn how to search, evaluate, and effectively use different types of information in their coursework and projects, particularly but not exclusively scholarly and academic information,” he said. “Ideally, students begin their academic journeys with an introduction to important foundational library concepts.”
Feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive. Students have reported feeling more confident in their ability to navigate the library’s resources and conduct research effectively.
Carrie emphasized that fostering positive relationships with students has been key. “I’ve built connections with several students who now recognize me at other campus events,” she said. Librarian recognition and personal relationships support a positive impression of the library which contributes to further engagement.”
By meeting students early in their academic journey, the UCR Library is setting the stage for these students’ continued academic growth and engagement throughout their time at UCR.