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More News November 03, 2016

UCR Library is pleased to welcome a new Business Librarian Swati Bhattacharyya to the Rivera Reference team.

Swati joins us from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where she has led the business school’s library since 1994. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in information studies and technology from Syracuse University, a Master’s degree in computer applications from Indira Gandhi National Open University, and an Associateship in documentation and information science from the Indian Statistical Institute.

Swati’s primary responsibilities will be to liaise with students and faculty in the School of Business and Anderson Graduate School of Management, serve as the subject specialist for business and economics, and participate in the ongoing projects and services of Rivera Reference.

More News June 14, 2015

Epic poem showcases "expedition of discovery" through unique lens.

In March, the UCR Library acquired one of 65 copies of The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. Held in Special Collections & University Archives in Rivera Library, this book is a reinvention of Sacajewea's personal journal. From the paper to the cover to the binding to the typeface, and all the way through the photographic interventions that accompany the narrative, it feels fragile and rare and incredibly special in your hands.

Spring 2005 marked the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And yet, while she is perhaps the most famous American Indian woman in history, Sacajewea's biographical details still remain a great mystery. Intrigued by this, and observing two exhibitions at the Missoula Museum of Art related to the bicentennial, master printer and book artist Peter Koch collaborated with poet and author Debra Magpie Earling to develop this visually-stunning poetic interpretation of Sacajewea's personal journal from the expedition.

"Debra Earling’s narrative takes us behind the eyes and ears of a pregnant 17-year-old girl traveling up the Missouri River with the 'expedition of discovery' in 1804-5," explains Koch. "She is haunted by visions." This sensation is expressed through the incredible photographs that accompany Earling's poem. The narrative is printed on semi-transparent, handmade paper so that the images float eerily through the text. Jonathan Gerken utilized empty shell casings, trade beads, and handmade smoked buffalo rawhide paper to bind the book in Koch's shop. The historic Fell typeface, reminiscent of the Eighteenth Century, evokes an indistinct nostalgia for the era. 

Robert G. Trujillo, Frances & Charles Field Curator of Special Collections for Stanford University Libraries, has called the book "an important work to own—for content as well as design and printing." This edition is limited to 65 copies, each signed by the author and the artist.

The complete prospectus can be found online at Peter Koch Printers. Please contact Special Collections & University Archives at (951) 827-3233 or specialcollections@ucr.edu to make viewing arrangements.

Image courtesy of Peter Koch Printers.

More News April 16, 2018

Where there’s a will, there’s a way – and a team of UC Riverside faculty and staff has devoted the last few years to finding innovative ways to make course materials more affordable for our students.

Survey results indicate that the Affordable Course Materials Initiative (ACMI) program has succeeded so far, having saved students more than $1.5 million over the past two years, according to Instructional Designer Nathaniel Wildes.

Wildes calculated these savings by factoring in the current quarter and recurring courses. “On average, it’s a little over $100 cost savings per student,” he said.

He shared these facts and more on Thursday, April 5 at an event called Democratizing Access to Student Success: Student and Faculty Perspectives on Affordable Course Materials, where attendees learned about the local impact of the ACMI since its 2015 launch. Held in the Center for Teaching and Learning on the first floor of Rivera Library, the event was co-sponsored by the UCR Library, the UC Riverside chapter of CALPIRG, and ITS.

“This is a critical social justice issue and one that is especially important on our campus,” said UCR Library’s Director of Teaching and Learning Dani Brecher Cook, who also coordinates the ACMI program for UC Riverside.

Cook’s welcome remarks included statistics from the UCR Basic Needs Working Group, which reported that six out of 10 students experience food insecurity during their time at UCR and may not have sufficient funds to afford textbooks.

A panel of UCR students also shared their personal experiences with high-cost textbooks compared to open-access resources.

Miguel Ramirez, a second-year anthropology major, Vice Chair of the UC Riverside chapter of CALPIRG, and campaign coordinator for the Higher Education Affordability Campaign, ambitiously bought all his textbooks as a freshman. “But I found myself not having enough money to afford three meals a day,” he said. “The average student is expected to pay $1,200 a year in textbooks and school supplies which, for me, is equivalent to almost 3 months of rent.”

Ramirez appreciated that courses using open-access resources gave all students the same opportunity to succeed. “And in my experience as a student, I can tell that my peers in the classroom like it better, too,” he added.

Fifth-year religious studies major and member of Mujeres Unidas Abigail Garcia tried to cut costs by purchasing earlier editions of textbooks or by using eBooks, but found that those alternatives created other challenges. “With older versions of textbooks, I have to make extra efforts to find where the professor is at in my version. It is a lot cheaper, but it doesn’t allow me to be in sync with the rest of the class,” she said. “With eBooks, it doesn’t give me the opportunity to annotate as freely as I’d like to.”

Huma Khan, a first-year business major and CALPIRG member, appreciates the portability of eBooks. “I’m a commuting student, so I would have to carry like 3 textbooks in my bag every day,” she said. However, certain rules during exams can create obstacles students who rely on eBooks or online-only resources. “Sometimes in midterms, teachers are like, ‘Yeah, you can use a book but you can’t use your computer,’” she added.

Both Garcia and Khan have felt frustrated by spending high dollar amounts but only reading one or two chapters in a textbook as well as with access codes. Khan explained, “For my last math class, I had to buy a textbook for the access code and it was $160, and I never even used the textbook.”

“Like a lot of students, I actually went without,” said Semi Cole, ASUCR Vice President of Internal Affairs and a fourth-year political science & public policy major. “I decided to see what I could do, learn what I could from lecture, and just see how it would work. Ultimately, my academics suffered.”

“We need to continue to move forward on this issue and expand to a larger departmental commitment,” Cole added. “We’ve seen from the students here that allowing open source textbooks in the classroom can be successful.”

“It’s deeply appreciated by our students,” said Cook. “It can also lead to innovative and engaging pedagogies.”

Faculty guest speakers included ACMI grant recipients Ruhi Khan, associate professor in media and cultural studies; and Rachel Wu, assistant professor in psychology.

The ACMI was first spearheaded by Chikako Takeshita, associate professor of gender and sexuality studies, and launched at UCR thanks to an $18,000 grant from Computing and Communications. Due to the success of the initial program, in 2016 an additional $150,000 from the Student Technology Advisory Committee established an endeavor that would span three years. At present, the ACMI is in its second year of this longer-term effort.

More News June 11, 2018

Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos had a wild idea in July 2017, but he didn’t know whether UCR had the resources he needed to bring his vision to life – until he found out about the Creat’R Lab.

It had opened its doors in Orbach Library only three months prior.

As a Researcher in UC Riverside’s Department of Earth Sciences, Kyriakopoulos typically works with numerical models on computer screens, but he wanted to make a 3D-model of California’s major earthquake faults to use as an outreach tool.

He believed that a tactile model would make his work more engaging, interactive and accessible to different types of audiences – from academic peers to elementary schoolchildren, government officials, and the visually impaired.

“It can be challenging for geophysicists to talk to everyday people about what we do,” Kyriakopoulos explained. “In order to do that better, it helps to be able to put our computer-based work into physical form.”

When he brought his idea to Michele Potter, Creat’R Lab’s 3D printing specialist, she was enthusiastic. “It involved a number of techniques and considerations we had never delved into before, and the educational application was so obvious,” she said. “This technology can teach people new concepts, partially by inspiring them to ask questions that they had never thought of before.”

“Michele was so helpful,” Kyriakopoulos said. “The Creat’R Lab is a great example of a well-organized space with an open doors policy, so easy to approach and so supportive.”

Kyriakopoulos and his 3D-printed model have had quite a busy year. “In nine months, we have brought the model to the general public, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting – the biggest geophysical conference in the world, the [Riverside] Long Night of Arts and Innovation, several outreach activities inside and outside UCR, and even a house committee meeting with legislators!” he said.

The model was featured at a congressional meeting on May 31, 2018 in Huntington Beach, where the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology (including Congress members Mark Takano, Dana Rohrabacher and Jerry McNerney) met to decide the fate of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).

“This may have helped significantly in giving arguments to Congress for increasing research funding for earth sciences,” said Michalis Faloutsos, UCR Director of Entrepreneurship.

“Christos’ model seems to have done for the Representatives what it has done for countless UCR and visiting students: showed them in a tangible way why we need to talk about earthquakes,” Potter added.

According to Kyriakopoulos, NEHRP is something that UCR should care about because data from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that the Southern California region has a 75% chance of seeing one or more major seismic events (an earthquake measuring 7.0 or higher) in the next 30 years – and Riverside is close to many of the most active and dangerous faults.

Kyriakopoulos’ office is now filled to the brim with 3D-printed models. His collection of fault displays has expanded to include a model of the subduction zone fault responsible for the M9 2011 Tohoku-oki event (Japan), the M7.2 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah (Baja California, Mexico) earthquake, the M7.8 2015 Gorkha (Nepal) earthquake. He also has small models of the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens, among others, which he plans to use for outreach.

“What Christos is doing is truly exciting, and the Creat’R lab has been crucial,” said David D. Oglesby, Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences and professor of geophysics.

Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos would like to recognize Kaitlin Chail (Director of Federal Relations at UCR) for organizing the participation at the Congressional Meeting in Huntington Beach.

More News October 15, 2018

The University of California, Riverside Library and campus partners will host several events in celebration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day.

This year, UCR will observe GIS Day on Thursday, Nov. 15.

GIS Day, first established in 1999, provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

The 2018 event will showcase the variety of disciplines using GIS, illustrate how GIS is used in both academic and community settings, and provide students opportunities for learning and networking.

“We’re excited to see that student interest in GIS at UCR is growing,” said Janet Reyes, the UCR Library geospatial information librarian who is coordinating GIS Day at UCR. “We hope this year’s GIS Day programming will inspire even more students to learn about the power of GIS to analyze and display location-based data, and will underscore that GIS is a sought-after skill for a multitude of career paths and disciplines.”

"GIS offers exciting opportunities for researchers, especially in the Humanities,” said Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, an Assistant Professor of History who uses GIS to analyze indigenous use of urban space in 19th-century West Africa. “It allows us to bring a sense of space and place to our work. Whether you’re in Gender and Sexuality, Ethnic Studies or Anthropology, there’s a meaningful place for you.” She added that she hopes that students and faculty from CHASS will come by this year and check out our posters, talks, and tables, and learn how GIS is already at work in the UCR community.

GIS Day 2018 at UCR will feature talks by researchers and community members who will share how they use GIS to advance their work. The talks will be held in Tomás Rivera Library, Room 140 between 1:00 and 3:00 on the afternoon of Nov. 15.

This is the second year a poster contest for students is being held. (Details on how to enter the poster contest are provided here. Abstracts are due by Nov. 1.)  Contest posters will be exhibited in the lobby of Rivera Library throughout the week, and the winners announced on the afternoon of Nov. 15.

Apart from the contest, the entire UC Riverside community is welcome to provide a GIS-related poster for a separate display in Rivera. Posters that have been used or will be used at other events are acceptable. The deadline to sign up is Friday, Oct. 26. To submit a poster to the display, contact Janet Reyes (janet.reyes@ucr.edu) or Margarita Yonezawa (margarita.yonezawa@ucr.edu) at the Orbach Science Library’s Map Collection, or call (951) 827-6423.

The campus community is encouraged to stop by an informational table near the bell tower during lunchtime on November 13 and 14 to learn more about GIS and enter a raffle. The drawing for raffle prizes will take place on November 15 at 3:45 pm in Rivera 140.

Cosponsoring the GIS Day events are the Center for Geospatial Sciences, the School of Public Policy, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the Department of Environmental Sciences, the Department of History, GradQuant, and Capital Asset Strategies.

More details about the GIS Day event schedule will be posted soon on the UCR Library website.

More News January 06, 2017

UCR Library is proud to congratulate our Outreach & Public Services Librarian, Robin M. Katz for receiving the James Harvey Robinson Prize from the American Historical Association.

The James Harvey Robinson Prize is awarded to the creators of a teaching aid that has made the most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history for public or educational purposes. Robin and Julie Golia, her project partner at Brooklyn Historical Society, were recognized for the excellence of their work on TeachArchives.org. The award ceremony was held in Colorado at the Sheraton Downtown Denver on January 4, 2017 during the AHA Annual Convention.

Robin and Julie received a three-year grant for the US Department of Education through the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), which was intended to spur the development of innovations that improve educational outcomes and develop an evidence base of effective practices. “We wanted it to be about more than just our primary grant audience,” Robin stated. “We wanted to help educators to get their pedagogical practices up-to-date.”

They used the grant to support a program called Students & Faculty in the Archives (SAFA). "One of the great things about the project that gave birth to TeachArchives was that Robin was an archivist and I was an historian, so we brought very different perspectives to the work," said Julie. Over a period of three years, SAFA worked in partnership with three colleges that were in walking distance from the Brooklyn Historical Society, each of which did not have special collections in their own libraries.

Robin and Julie’s goal with SAFA was to bring students in to use the archives for hands-on learning. “Anyone can come use special collections,” Robin said. “We wanted the students to have a more meaningful use of the archives, more active and hands-on learning, where they could apply themselves to a problem using the collection.” From 2011 to 2013, they collaborated with over 1,100 students, 18 partner faculty, and 65 courses over four semesters on three different campuses.

They measured and assessed the impact of their program and found that the students who came to use the archives were more engaged, had better academic performance, better retention, and higher rates of course completion than their peers. The overall findings of the program determined that learning in archives can positively affect students.

“We were really passionate about getting more and more students in, and we were in a spot where we really got to focus on it, so that was a nice luxury,” Robin explained. “Our intention was to share universal lessons with a wider global audience and engage and empower educators from elementary school to graduate school with practical how-to articles, case studies, and sample exercises with agendas, lesson plans, and handouts, as well as documentation for the grant project.”

According to Robin, the grant called for dissemination to share what they had learned, so she and Julie gave countless conference presentations and published several articles to share their findings. They also advocated to create the TeachArchives.org website to make the information available online for free to a global audience.

"At the AHA awards ceremony, I had the opportunity to speak to a few of the people who did the peer review process for the award," explained Julie. "It was terrific to learn that the processes, the articles, and the other tools that we created on the website are being used at all different levels of education, from primary schools to colleges. That it is exactly what we intended it to be. It wasn’t just the design how we saw it in our heads, but it was great to see that was how it was playing out across the country. That was incredibly gratifying.”

Now that Robin is at UC Riverside, she hopes to expand on her work with TeachArchives through the instruction project that she is helping to build by bringing this new method of primary source instruction to Special Collections & University Archives.

More News April 28, 2017

When UCR alumnus Dr. Mark Glassy heard that the library was putting together an exhibit to honor the 200^th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, he couldn’t wait to get involved.

Our Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, JJ Jacobson and her co-curator, graduate student Miranda Butler had been curating the scholarly exhibit for about six months when Glassy reached out to express interest in collaboration.

“Miranda is a grad student in the English department and the SFCS (Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science) program, and she knows amazing amounts of things about gothic literature,” Jacobson explained. But Glassy brings something very different to the table: a life-long love affair with monster memorabilia and science fiction.

Glassy invited Butler, Jacobson, and Cherry Williams, UCR Library’s Director of Distinctive Collections, to view his extensive personal collection of models, comic books, and other memorabilia. Jacobson nicknamed Glassy’s home “the monster model mansion,” a nod to the title of his former website, The Doctor’s Model Mansion.

Glassy himself sculpted many of the pieces in his collection, and therefore they are one-of-a-kind. “Mark is willing to lend us some of his models for the exhibit and/or an accompanying display,” Jacobson stated enthusiastically.

“It’s such an honor to be with somebody while they show you what their passion is, what they’ve collected over the course of a lifetime,” Williams commented.

Their collaboration has been a meeting of the minds for several people who truly love the genre. “He’s really, really smart about Frankenstein as an enduring icon,” Jacobson said of Glassy. Their conversations sometimes spark new tangents, she added, which inspire an entirely new vein of research for exhibit content.

“He loves that we want to talk to him seriously about science fiction. All of us are taking our geekdom and our love of science fiction and using it to do something amazing in the world,” Jacobson added. “Mark is a big-time cancer hero, and Miranda is an incredibly insightful and promising graduate student. We know here at UCR that a love of science fiction can coexist with a serious intellectual life. Other parts of the world can be a little slower to catch up.”

The “200 Years of Frankenstein” exhibit is scheduled to begin in September 2018, in Special Collections on the fourth floor of Rivera Library.

Cancer researcher by day, and science fiction enthusiast by night. See more of UCR alumnus Dr. Glassy’s collection here: www.glassyscifiarchive.com

More News October 08, 2019

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.”

***

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.”

***

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.

***

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.”

***

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.

 

More News December 11, 2017

Empathy and the power of choice: those are two things that the Footsteps to You – Chattel Slavery exhibition hopes to inspire.

Footsteps to You – Chattel Slavery will open on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018 in Special Collections and University Archives, located on the fourth floor of Tomás Rivera Library. Curated by Jordan Brown, Class of 2019 History major and Mellon Fellow with the Curatorial Studies program at Spelman College, this exhibition will be presented at UC Riverside by the Black Voice Foundation with the Gore Collection.

“There’s a long-standing history with UCR,” said Hardy Brown II, Executive Director of the Black Voice Foundation. “The Black Voice News was started at UCR 45 years ago,” he added, which is one reason the Black Voice Foundation chose to bring this exhibition to our campus.

The collection featured in this exhibition was entrusted to the Black Voice Foundation by the Estate of Jerry Gore. Gore was a respected historian who developed a national reputation through his work and personal collection efforts, which focused on the history of enslavement and abolition in the Maysville, Kentucky metropolitan region.

The exhibition showcases primary resources and implements of slavery that date back to the 1800s. Some materials featured tell the story of a group of black and white people who decided that slavery was wrong and worked together to change the system. “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are highly relevant to the current political climate,” Brown commented. “We have the same dialogue going on today.”

Gore was not a man of tremendous means, but he devoted every spare dollar he had to acquiring these artifacts, according to Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds, Publisher of The Black Voice News and Steward of the Gore Collection for the Black Voice Foundation.

“Jerry felt like he had a special responsibility to keep it, and then impart it to those of us who he knew would go out and teach, as well,” Dr. Brown-Hinds said. For that reason, she considered Gore a “griot,” a West African term that means “keeper of the culture.” She added, “It’s important that we partner with institutions like the UCR Library to show it to a wider audience.”

The Black Voice Foundation originally connected with Gore through their “Footsteps to Freedom” tour. “The tour started because a teacher in a local district was teaching her students that slavery was good for the slaves, that it civilized them,” Dr. Brown-Hinds explained. “Today, we hear the same ignorant rhetoric coming from people with a larger platform.”

More than 1,500 educators have participated in the tour over the past 20 years. “When they go on this tour – something changes in them. They have to do something in their community,” said Brown. “When they walk out, it’s on them whether they want to continue to teach the way they were taught or whether they’re going to teach differently.”

Brown hopes that seeing these rare materials will open up a discourse between attendees. “I don’t want people to feel blame when they come in,” he said. “When they see these artifacts, it’s not just show-and-tell. It’s a conversation. The whole piece together really hinges on empathy and understanding other people. Our whole country was founded on freedom, but we had this whole population of people who weren’t free.”

“In 100 years, what do you want history to say about you? Were you on the right side – or the wrong side – of history?” he asked. “Even if something doesn’t affect you, are you willing to stand up and fight?”

More News June 28, 2022

WisCon is a feminist science fiction & fantasy convention held annually in Madison, Wisconsin. 

This year's conference took place in late May with Andrew Lippert, Special Collections Processing Archivist, Sandy Enriquez, Special Collections Public Services Outreach/Community Engagement Librarian, and Dr. Phoenix Alexander, our soon-to-be Jay Kay and Doris Klein Science Fiction Librarian, in attendance. Learn more about the conference from Andrew and Sandy in our WisCon Q&A. 

How did it feel to go to an in-person conference again?

Sandy: It was both exciting, and a little bit nerve-wracking! But part of the reason I felt comfortable attending WisCon was that they took extensive precautions and implemented many best practices to keep folks safe. All the conference-goers I encountered respected the protocols (including a mask mandate) and I felt very comfortable. Having those safety measures in place meant that I could fully enjoy all the benefits of in-person conferences.

Andrew: It was wonderful to attend a conference in-person again. There are definite upsides to being able to get conference content from the comfort of one’s own home, but you miss all of the little conversations and encounters that happen outside of the sessions. It’s also fun to wander around a town you’ve never been to for a couple of days.

What were some of the highlights from WisCon?

Sandy: One of my favorite moments was listening to readings from the new speculative fiction anthology, "Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue" edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan, and Troy L. Wiggins. One of the stories centered on the care and shepherding of space whales, which was so magical and whimsical to imagine! 

Andrew: WisCon was a fantastic event and there were a lot of great elements. First and foremost, the panels and the conversations that they inspired were truly superb. This might have been the most intellectually stimulating and inspiring conference/convention I have been to. There is a lot of really important work going on in these spaces.

How does WisCon’s mission align with the goals you have for your work here at the UCR Library?

Sandy: WisCon is a community-led, feminist science fiction and fantasy convention. They aim to make their events as inclusive, safe, and welcoming as possible for people from all walks of life. Their mission to promote inclusivity and uplift underrepresented voices in science fiction aligns strongly with my goals for public services, outreach, and community engagement at UCR Library. Part of my job is to help people find and utilize our collections, and I especially strive to reach communities who have been traditionally excluded from, or misrepresented in, the historical record. I aim to increase access and knowledge of the collections through innovative and collaborative outreach, as well as highlighting underrepresented stories whenever possible. For example, I have recently taught several workshops centering Chicano student activism at UCR, in collaboration with graduate student instructors, and with Chicano Student Programs. While science fiction is only one aspect of our collecting focus, I think we can learn a lot from this field (and feminism in general) about how to partner with communities and practice more equitable outreach, teaching, and research.

Andrew: The primary way that my work with the Eaton Collection aligns with WisCon is in efforts to diversify the genre of speculative fiction. WisCon started out as the feminist science fiction con in the late 1970s, and it still has a lot of those feminist roots with its current incarnation. However, I saw an organization that has evolved to be radically inclusive of all peoples, with a very strong emphasis on the LGBTQ+ community. There were also themes of decolonization and anti-capitalism that popped up from session to session that also work their way into how I think about building a speculative fiction collection.

Was there anything interesting or noteworthy you learned at the conference?

Sandy: Absolutely! Marie Vibbert gave a fantastic presentation about her research on labor in science fiction novels. She analyzed the jobs and classes of main characters across almost two hundred science fiction novels to create her dataset. She found that, contrary to popular belief, science fiction protagonists were more likely to be upper/middle class than working class. She also found that male authors were more likely to write male characters than other genders.

Andrew: The most notable learning opportunity for me — as a cis, white, male — was to be immersed into a queer space. This is not something that I encounter very often in my day-to-day life and I appreciate opportunities like this that center and value the voices and points of view of people that are not often afforded that opportunity. To me, the incredibly engaging discussions only reinforce the value and importance of inclusion and diversity and the degree to which more diverse points of view only serve to enrich the conversation.

Does the Eaton Collection include many feminist works?

Sandy: The Eaton Collection does include many works by feminist authors and works that explore feminist themes, but given how quickly the field is evolving, there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, we have feminist science fiction classics such as 'The Female Man' by Joanna Russ or 'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K. Le Guin, along with more contemporary examples of feminist science fiction such as the graphic novel 'Bitch Planet' by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine de Landro. We are actively working to diversify our holdings by identifying and acquiring new works, including those that may incorporate feminist themes but are not explicitly labeled as such (one that comes to mind is the fantastic anthology 'Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction' edited by Joshua Whitehead).

Andrew: Yes! We have many novels by feminist authors (for example: Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ, and many more). There is also a lot of feminist work done in the comics and graphic novel space (such as: Bitch Planet or Maiden, Mother, and Crone). We have quite a lot of secondary, academic literature on feminism and science fiction. In the manuscript collections, we have the papers of feminist author Jody Scott. Former UCR professor Nalo Hopkinson has also been donating her papers to the Eaton Collection. There is so much material in the collection, far more than can be listed succinctly!

Do you plan on going back next year?

Sandy: I would love to! I'm not sure yet where next year will take me, but it would be fantastic to return.

Andrew: I would love to! It’s hard to plan that far out, but I hope to make it back to WisCon in the near future.

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