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More News October 27, 2017

Moises Martinez Cortez is a fourth-year Global Studies major who has worked as a Front Desk Assistant at UCR Library since fall quarter of his freshman year.

He grew up in the Lynwood – Downey area of Los Angles as the youngest of six children, raised by a single mother who immigrated from Nayarit, along the central west coast of rural Mexico. Cortez says, “I love her to bits.”

Though he’s the youngest in his family, Cortez is the first person in his family to attend a four-year university. “My older brother and sister went to community college for a while, but ended up dropping out,” he explained.

At first, Cortez considered attending UCLA so he could live at home, but a few things about UC Riverside helped to change his mind. “I come from a low-income background and UCR I felt had the right resources, both financial and the right kind of community, to carry on my education here,” he said.

While he felt out of place for the first quarter, he adjusted quickly, partly due to working at Tomás Rivera Library. “I’ve met a lot of people at the front desk,” he said. “I feel more connected to campus as well. I’ve made a lot of new friends with fellow student employees and also expanded my academic network.”

After getting better acquainted with many people here at UCR, Cortez added, “It’s the community that makes us stand out. There’s an environment of, ‘We want to collectively get ahead, make sure our students graduate, we want to grow.’”

He’s also grateful for the mentors he’s met here at the library. “All the staff in Circulation are super helpful, and Leslie [Settle, Access Services Desk Coordinator] is hands-down the best supervisor I’ve ever had,” he said. “She tries to help us out however she can. She always sends us emails about events on campus, and where we can get free food.”

“Moises is a selfless employee who always looks out for the interest of others,” Settle commented. “He’s willing to help where needed and never hesitates to do what is best for the team. Moises is innovative, in that he developed a communication chain for student workers.”

Cortez’s understanding and appreciation of the intersection between cultures is part of what led him to pursue a degree in Global Studies.

“It’s a major that’s becoming more and more relevant with the interconnected, global world that we live in,” he said. “A lot of political issues that are relevant here are also relevant in other parts of the world, as well. Climate change, global security, so many other things.”

Cortez studied abroad last fall as part of a human rights and cultural memory program in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. This experience gave him an outside-in perspective of the 2016 Presidential election. “It gave me an inside view of how people around the world view American politics,” he said. “The fact that they knew so much about the US really surprised me, and made me wonder why people in the US don’t know much about people in this part of the world.”

He currently divides his time between work, study, painting (primarily working with acrylics and graffiti art), and tutoring Italian, French, and Spanish for the Academic Resource Center.

“I’m kind of a nerd, to be honest. I really like learning languages,” he said. “I get a kick out of learning how to communicate with somebody else in a different way, in their language. I’m a native Spanish speaker, and I picked up French in high school. I studied Arabic and Italian here on campus. I’m currently trying to learn Portuguese because I’ll be studying abroad in Brazil in January.”

After he graduates, Cortez hopes to work for the US State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. “I’m interested in working abroad in US embassies with foreign governments, working on issues like security, immigration, development, and seeing what I can do as a representative of the US to help foster that growth and that development,” he explained.

More News January 21, 2021

The first-ever UC GIS Week was a resounding success thanks to the ingenuity and passionate support of the UCR community, according to Geospatial Information Librarian Janet Reyes.

COVID-related event cancellations in 2020 inspired UCR to pivot from planning a UCR-only GIS Day event to participating in the inaugural UC GIS Week virtual conference. Reyes and Elizabeth Perez, Campus Space / GIS Coordinator from UCR’s office of Planning, Design and Construction, both made significant contributions to the conference planning activities. “It was a collaboration across all UC campuses,” Reyes said.

Held on Nov. 17-19, 2020, UC GIS Week provided an opportunity for attendees to learn and engage with experts and mapping projects across the UC system and beyond, Reyes explained. “They could ask questions during the thematic mapping panels, engage with GIS industry professionals, interact with poster presenters, and connect during social events.”

With 865 attendees from across the UC system and the general population, UC Riverside ranked fourth in participation, despite our enrollment numbers ranking seventh of the 10 UC campuses. “Only UCLA, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego had more attendees,” Reyes added.

In addition, five of the 64 conference presenters were from UC Riverside:

• Nicolas Barth, Assistant Professor of Geology
• Ahmed Eldawy, Assistant Professor in Computer Science
• Emily Esposito, graduate student in Psychology
• Andre Mere, graduate student in Earth and Planetary Sciences
• Elia Scudiero, Assistant Research Agronomist at the USDA-ARS US Salinity Laboratory

“It will happen again next year and hopefully for years to come,” Reyes said. She credited the high level of Highlander participation to an increasing interest in GIS and geospatial study at UCR, as well as to robust publicity efforts. “Attendance has been increasing at our monthly GIS/Geospatial Meetups, and for workshops in the Geospatial series offered by the Research Services department,” she added.

In addition to conference planning, Reyes also created the UCR GIS Profile for the UC GIS Hub, which was launched during the plenary session. “The Hub will help GIS users throughout the UC system connect with each other, compare notes, find expertise, and more,” she explained.

Recordings of the sessions are all available on the UC GIS Week website.

A committee of GIS advocates at UC Riverside will continue to explore ways for UCR GIS users to connect with useful information and with each other. To get involved with GIS at UCR, please contact Janet Reyes.

More News February 10, 2017

Many hands make for light work – and when the job is sorting more than 21,000 comic books, you need a lot of hands.

Jim Clark, Head of the Database Management and Authority Control Unit, and Erika Quintana, Acquisitions Unit Supervisor were tagged as team leaders and charged with tackling the project of sorting 142 boxes, each containing approximately 150 comic books.

Jim explained, “We took all the boxes, looked at what we had, and tried to come up with how best to attack it.” He and Erika knew right away that they needed help, and all it took was the lure of free pizza to entice the rest of the team to join. Perhaps library employees are not so different from the students they serve, after all.

“It was a lot of fun,” Jim added. “Erika Quintana and I just organized all the boxes, gathered everybody, and we just went to town.” There were three big sorting ‘parties,’ during which Metadata Cataloger Sompratana Creighton and Asian Languages Cataloger Min Yu came on board as permanent team mates. Other floating team members included Acquisitions Assistants Sean Andress, Christy Brown Anderson, and Deborah Snow, Serials Assistant Andi Newman, Engineering Librarian Michele Potter, Head of Metadata & Technical Services Manuel Urrizola, Digital Assets Metadata Librarian Noah Geraci, Metadata Cataloger Julia Ree, as well as Associate University Librarians Diane Bisom and Alison Scott.

During the first phase of sorting, the team got through about one-third of the boxes when a surprise delivery arrived. “Special collections discovered a bunch more comics that they didn’t know we had, so those got merged into the project,” Manuel explained.

“If Erika and I had been the only ones doing it, we’d still be working on it,” Jim said. “But having that many people work on it, it saved us so much time. It really was a big help.” In whole, the sorting project lasted more than six months, even with several members of the team working on it daily.

“Not only could we work faster and more effectively, but we could also get to know each other more,” Sompratana commented. “When we worked together as a group, I got to know them really well and I liked that.”

Min agreed, “We worked mostly as a team and we had a happy time working together. We had fun and learned a lot.”

Most of the 21,000-plus comic books that the team organized will become part of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, adding a wide variety of new and different assets to the UCR Library’s extensive array of materials devoted to this field of scholarly research.

Some of the comics were given to the library by donors who asked for special attribution, so those were kept separate from the rest.

In addition, the team also had to sort out duplicates and process them separately from the comics that the library planned to retain in our collections. According to Min, there were approximately 40 boxes of duplicate issues culled from the collection.

“My favorite part was seeing everyone work together,” Jim stated. “They really got into it! It was really great teamwork.”

Now, the project is moving into its next phase: cataloging, which could take a year or more to complete. “We could use as many people as we can get,” Jim said. “If anyone is interested, if they would enjoy doing that, they should reach out to me or Erika to see how to get involved.”

More News October 03, 2018

Many UCR alumni enjoy visiting campus – but it’s not always possible for them to make the trip.

To remedy this, UC Riverside’s Office of Alumni Relations turned to the Creat’R Lab in the Orbach Library to help take a few campus landmarks on the road – specifically the Bell Tower, the UCR initials (by the HUB), and Scotty the Highlander bear.

“We requested 3D prints of these campus icons to take to regional alumni events around the country as part of a plan to bring the campus experience to our alumni and supporters in their communities,” said Development / Campaign Communications Manager Jennifer Merrett. Their first event this quarter was a “Living the Promise” reception at Petco Park in San Diego on Monday, Oct. 1.

Part of the Creat’R Lab’s mission is to foster such collaborations. “The initial meeting was very motivating, since the Alumni Relations team was pretty excited and energetic,” said Michele Potter, the Creat’R Lab’s 3D printing specialist. “They had a lot of ideas for bringing creativity to alumni events and giving attendees fun ways to be interactive and creative.”

Alumni Marketing and Communications Manager Kendall Burks worked closely with Potter during summer to refine the 3D-printed replicas. To increase alumni nostalgia, Burks suggested putting blue glow sticks inside the Bell Tower miniature so it would resemble UCR’s full-size Carillion tower when lit up at night.

Potter collaborated with a design partner and lecturer from UCR’s English department, Aaron Potter, to modify the 3D model so it could be lit from within. “Michele was meticulous about perfecting the holes in the bell tower, and it was so cool to see the blue light emanating from within!” Merrett said.

While not exactly to scale, Potter explained that the finished model of the Bell Tower is quite an achievement as it measures 30 centimeters tall, which is more than twice the build height of the Creat’R Lab’s Makerbot Replicator.

“I am pretty excited to have done this project and I hope the alums like the models,” she added. 

“Michele in the Creat’R Lab was such a pleasure to work with. She went above and beyond to bring our idea to life in better ways than we had planned, and she provided thoughtful suggestions for engaging our guests in new ways,” Merrett said. “Our team also enjoyed learning about the Lab and the work that Michele does to support students, faculty, and staff in pursuing creativity and innovation.”

The replicas have also been popular with students who have seen them in the Creat’R Lab over the summer. Potter said, “They have been really excited to see the various prototypes and many have asked if they can have much smaller copies for themselves.”

More News June 23, 2021

UC Riverside’s second annual Juneteenth celebration took place June 15-18, 2021 -- but many may not know that a library employee spearheaded the genesis of this event.

“With knowledge comes power,” said Leslie Settle, Access Services Desk Coordinator. “I didn’t learn about Juneteenth until college because it’s not something we are taught in school. Once aware, I made an effort to ensure it was something I not only celebrated, but commemorated.” According to Settle, Juneteenth or Jubilee Day was widely celebrated in the late 1800s but was met with bloody violence by some who did not like that Black people were no longer enslaved. What was once a beautiful celebration became fearful and life-endangering.

Her passion and desire to educate others about the significance of Juneteenth inspired Leslie to chair the inaugural UCR Juneteenth celebration in 2020, to recognize the achievements and contributions of UCR’s Black faculty, staff, students, and alumni. “I knew our campus community was hurting, dealing with two pandemics, and it was important to bring UC together as a community and fellowship, celebrating our freedom and life.” She enlisted the Black Faculty and Staff Association (BFASA), African Student Programs (ASP), and the Black Alumni Chapter (BAC) as event partners.

On June 18, 2021, U.S. President Biden declared Juneteenth a Federal holiday and UC President Michael Drake added it to the University of California holiday calendar.

Leslie had campaigned for the last several years to achieve this goal. “Juneteenth being recognized as a Federal holiday was a breath of fresh air. I was so excited that after years, it finally happened,” Leslie said. “I know many people in my community felt like it was another way to satisfy ‘us’ with a symbolic victory rather than economic equity and real justice, but not me. This was a major accomplishment for me personally and I can still see the joy on my daughter's face when I told her what happened in our nation. This Federal recognition is the gateway to deal with our American past and push forward together as an American people. Juneteenth is not just a ‘Black’ holiday. It is a freedom holiday that all Americans should celebrate and enjoy together.”

For 2021, the Juneteenth Celebration expanded to a week-long online event, and another library employee, Rochelle Settle, volunteered to handle talent acquisition. “Juneteenth being recognized as a federal holiday is a step in a good direction. It recognizes my ancestor’s plight, struggle and emancipation from the horrors of slavery,” she said.

During the Juneteenth celebration, Leslie served as the Mistress of Ceremonies and Rochelle gave beautiful a cappella performances of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn composed in 1900 by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, and “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, written during the Civil Rights Era. Rochelle and Will Pines, disability specialist from the Academic Resource Center, coordinated the event speakers, including panelists Dr. Jamal Myrick, director of African Student Programs; Dr. Barry Settle from Allen Chapel AME in Riverside; Kristy J. Heisser, President and Founder of Malcolm’s Heart Inc.; Deidre Reyes, UCR Class of 2021 graduate; and keynote speaker Charles Lee-Johnson, assistant professor and chair of the Department of Social Work at California Baptist University. Several other UCR Library employees contributed to the Juneteenth kickoff event on June 16, a video tribute called Messages of Freedom.

“Living on the West Coast, this holiday was not always celebrated like it was in the south, so it is up to us to educate others,” Rochelle said. “I heard one African-American young woman say that she had never heard much about Juneteenth until this week-long event. I was so encouraged that all of us, collectively, were able to contribute to her and I’m sure many others (all races) in learning about this part of American history.”

During his keynote speech, Lee-Johnson spoke of how Juneteenth celebrations could create a ripple effect of positivity. “I believe participating in Juneteenth has given me a new insight on how I see and value others. My ripple effect will be to continue to acknowledge the accomplishments of all my coworkers, embrace fellowship with one another, and embrace our differences,” Leslie said. “I think in the end, this ripple will boost morale in the workplace and increase productivity. We are definitely stronger together.”

Rochelle added, “We will never know how far out those ripples will spread into the lives of UCR staff, faculty, and their circles. I thought it was a beautiful thing to witness people of all races, colors and backgrounds come together to celebrate Juneteenth.”

For those interested in learning more about Juneteenth, the library has many resources on the subject. Additionally, library staff and ASP collaborated last June to create a Black Lives Matter resource guide.

More News April 11, 2012

Renowned rare book preservationist Terry Belanger will speak at April 18 celebration.

By Bettye Miller

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — UCR Library will celebrate the acquisition of its 3 millionth volume in a ceremony on April 18 at 2:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Tomás Rivera Library on the UC Riverside campus.

The keynote speaker will be Terry Belanger, University Professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and founding director of Rare Book School, a nonprofit institute devoted to the history of books and printing, and to rare books and special collections librarianship.  He won a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2005.

Mike Terry, pipe major of the UCR Pipe Band, will perform an original composition, “Literary Notes” (An Ode to the Book).   A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public. Parking costs $5 in Lot 6. To RSVP call (951) 827-4941 or email terrig@ucr.edu.

Achieving a collection size of 3 million volumes is a milestone for UCR, said University Librarian Ruth M. Jackson. The library celebrated its 1 millionth volume in March 1981, and its 2 millionth volume in November 2001. Currently the number of volumes held by the libraries is 3,214,420. Of that total, more than 404,000 are e-books.

With this achievement, UCR ranks 81st for the number of volumes held among the 115 academic research libraries in the United States and Canada that are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). That places UC Riverside just below UC Irvine, which ranks 77th, and just above UC Santa Barbara, which ranks 84th.

“The digital transition is occurring at a steady pace,” Jackson said, and will ultimately transform libraries in much the same way as the printing press revolutionized the process of book-making and distribution in the 15th century.

Printed books will continue to co-exist with e-books and other formats and will remain a staple of university and research libraries for some time, she said.  Currently, only 20 percent of all in-copyright scholarly books published in the U.S. and worldwide are fully available in digital form, she said. Electronic books allow multiple users to browse their pages at the same time; can be viewed and accessed on-site in the library, or remotely from home, student residences, and faculty offices using either hard-wired computers, laptops, or hand held mobile devices with proper UCR authentication; and will ultimately offer vast advantages for full-text searching/data mining as the trend continues.

Research libraries, such as the UCR Library, typically purchase books upon the recommendation of library subject-specialists, in collaboration with faculty, based upon the national publication output and the University’s profile, Jackson explained.

In fiscal year 2011, the UCR Library initiated a pilot for testing a demand-driven acquisition (DDA) system that enables all UCR-affiliated library users to access and read licensed e-books loaded into the Scotty catalog by three major vendors. The e-books and the titles for printed books are chosen for loading based upon the university’s academic and research profile. If an e-book or the title for a printed book is accessed or used three times, a purchase is automatically made by the system for the UCR Library, making the electronic title part of the permanent collection. When the title for a print book is accessed for the first time, the system will ask the user if he or she wants to place an automatic order for the title.

The UCR Library will analyze purchasing patterns based upon the pilot at the end of the current fiscal year to determine how the two models of selecting materials for permanent addition to the collections differ and complement each other.

“It’s still very much a print world  in many ways and will be so for a while in several key academic disciplines and publishing fields such as the arts, humanities, social sciences, foreign language materials, and selected areas of the sciences ,” Jackson said. “It’s also one of the most exciting times to be a librarian and information scientist because of the mix of information resources we are able to make available to our users.

“The digital transition in publishing is changing the whole information environment. Libraries have a significant role to play in reshaping the campus information environment and developing new ways to manage, deliver, and preserve both print and digital resources, as we continue our role of making easily available the scientific, social and cultural publishing output of the nation and the world in support of research and learning.”

First e-book acquired by UCR Library: “Native American health care: January 1980-January 1993,) Patricia La Caille

10 Most Popular Books in the UCR Library 2011-2012 (based on circulation data)

1. “Outliers: the story of success,” Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

2. “Person and reality; an introduction to metaphysics,” ed. Peter Anthony Bertocci et al (1958)

3. “Eat, pray, love: one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia,” Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)

4. “God and creation: three interpretations of the universe,” John Elof Boodin (1934)

5. “GRE exam: premier program,” Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (2008, 2009)

6. “Handbook of fuel cells: fundamentals, technology, and applications,” ed. Wolf Vielstich, et al (2003)

7. “Cracking the GRE,” with DVD, Karen Lurie, et al (2010)

8. “Crisis intervention theory and practice: a clinical handbook,” Ann Wolbert Burgess, et al. (1981)

9. “Catching Fire,” Suzanne Collins (2009)

10. “The Hunger Games,” Suzanne Collins (2008)

More News November 17, 2021

AUTHOR: SARAH NIGHTINGALE

On hot and steamy days in Saigon, Vietnam, there was only one place for an enlisted man to cool off for a while. “That place was the library,” said UC Riverside alumna Ann Kelsey, who served as a civilian librarian for the U.S. Army from 1969-70. “The libraries were air conditioned because of the books, not the people, though. If they weren’t, the books would mold in two days.” 

Kelsey’s service during the Vietnam War was the beginning of a career in library science and automation that would span more than four decades. Her recent pledge to UC Riverside, a $489,000 planned gift to the UCR Library, will continue Kelsey’s legacy in helping people learn through technology.

After meeting as a UCLA student with a U.S. Army Special Services recruiter, Ann Kelsey went overseas after graduation, overseeing four libraries during the Vietnam War.

Born in Indiana in 1946, Kelsey moved with her family to Riverside at the age of five, attending Riverside schools and graduating from Polytechnic High School. Her parents supported her dream of attending university and becoming a librarian, but money was tight. UCR—affordable, close to home, and offering the feel of a small liberal arts college—was the perfect fit.

“I was the first person in my family to go to college and I lived at home, so I spent a lot of time at The Barn, which was the gathering point for students who didn’t live in the dorms,” Kelsey said. “I had so much fun going to dances and parties. I also loved the classes and the teachers, and I learned so much.” 

Anthropology classes, in which Kelsey developed an interest in Southeast Asia and Vietnamese history and culture, changed her world view. 

“My whole experience at UCR was wonderful. It really was a life-changing experience,” she said.

After graduating from UCR with a double major in English and anthropology in 1968, Kelsey earned a master’s in library science at UCLA. During her time on that larger, more politically active campus, Kelsey felt suffocated by anti-war protests.

“The anti-war movement was very active at UCLA. It was constant hostility and strife,” Kelsey said. “Bruin Walk, which is right outside Powell Library, was a focal gathering point. All my classes were there of course, so I had to walk through that every day. That was in 1968 and there were Vietnam veterans attempting to go to school. I was just appalled.”

When U.S. Army Special Services recruiters came to campus looking for librarians, Kelsey knew she had an opportunity to show her support for Americans serving in Vietnam.

“I filled in the application form, sent it off and, two months after I graduated, I was my way to Vietnam. There were 300 soldiers and me on the plane and that kind of set the tone for the whole year.”

During her time in Vietnam, Kelsey oversaw four libraries, helping soldiers with everything from homework for correspondence courses to recreational reading.

Ann Kelsey's gift will help strengthen and sustain the UCR Library's programs and services in emerging technology.

Ann Kelsey's gift will help strengthen and sustain the UCR Library's programs and services in emerging technology.
“The libraries functioned very much like a small town public library,” Kelsey said. “That was the purpose of the Army Morale and Recreation program, whether it was library, the entertainment shows, or the rec center—it was to bring a touch of home to the combat zone.”

Returning to the United States, Kelsey settled on the East Coast, working at public libraries and community colleges while supplementing her income with freelance and contract work. In the late 1970s, while working at the Morris County Free Library in Whippany, N.J., Kelsey found herself at the forefront of library automation.

“I could tell this was where the future of libraries was going to be,” Kelsey said. "At that time I was in charge of the children’s book department, so I volunteered to work extra, retrospectively converting the manual shelf list to a digitized record.”

UCR Alumni Association events in the New York tri-state area rekindled Kelsey’s connection with the university in the 1990s. At that time she became a member of the Alumni Association and began making a monthly pledge to the association’s scholarship fund. 

In-line with her life and career, Kelsey’s latest gift—a $489,000 planned gift to the UCR Library—will help strengthen and sustain the library’s programs and services in emerging technology.

“The UCR Library is honored by the generosity and confidence shown by Ann Kelsey in her establishment of this bequest, said Steven Mandeville-Gamble, University Librarian. “Ms. Kelsey’s career has spanned the advent of library automation to the evolution of digital scholarship and emerging digital literacies. This gift will allow the UCR Library to continue to evolve to meet the increasingly sophisticated technology needs of our faculty and students for many decades to come.” 

More about Kelsey’s service in Vietnam is available as oral history interviews in the Virtual Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University and Rutgers University Oral History Archives. “In Their Footsteps,” a play based on the oral histories of Kelsey and four other women documents the often untold experiences of the thousands of women who served in Vietnam during the war. It has been performed in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Ohio, Italy, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Australia.

 

More News December 16, 2016

UCR Library is pleased to announce that Nicole Valencia has accepted the Financial Services Analyst position in Library Administration.

Nicole will transition from her temporary role to a permanent UCR employee on Monday, December 19.

Nicole has over twenty years of experience working in accounts payable, accounts receivable, billing, purchasing, cashiering and collections in higher education, construction, manufacturing, and retail.

Before coming to the UCR Library as a temporary employee on August 1, 2016, she spent most of 2015 working at Ashdown College of Health Sciences and at the University of Redlands in the first part of 2016.

As an Administrative Analyst in Planning and Budget, she will continue to process travel, reimbursements, and cash/check deposits.

Nicole will begin managing the supply orders and requests (Storehouse/OfficeMax) for the Library starting on Friday, December 16.

More News July 28, 2022

Please welcome Carrie Cruce to the UCR Library.

Carrie joined the UCR Library as a Teaching Librarian on July 5. As our Teaching Librarian, Carrie supports student success, especially in early experiences.

Carrie has a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan with a focus in Art History and two master's degrees from the University of Texas at Austin — one in Art History and the other an MSIS. Before coming to UCR, Carrie served as the Division Director of Learning Resources at Temple College in Texas where she managed the information literacy/library instruction program. 

Carrie is looking forward to being an integral part of the UCR Library team and collaborating with colleagues and faculty. She’s excited to have the opportunity to use her professional experience to guide students in building the information literacy skills they need to be successful in their research at UCR, their future careers, and beyond.

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