More News June 05, 2017

Recently, Alertus Desktop Notification was installed on all library computer workstations.

This software is meant to notify UC Riverside library users of on-campus emergency or threat issues.

What is Alertus?

The application functions as an alerting system for staff, students, and patrons that use library computer workstations. Alertus Emergency Notification System works in conjunction with a High Powered Speaker Arrays (HPSA) at the BellTower, as well as a Desktop Client.

What does it do?

1. The Alertus Desktop Alert client program simply pops up a full-screen window, on top of any other computer programs currently running.
2. There should be no expectation of performance impact for any other running processes.
3. For example: An instructor playing a DVD would have his or her playback visually interrupted by the pop up alert message, but after acknowledging the message their program should be in the same state as before the message appeared.

How does it work?

1. The Desktop Alert takes up the entire screen when activated and a Text to Speech message will also play aloud.
2. Users can dismiss the alert manually; otherwise, the alerts disappear when a dispatcher cancels the alert.
3. If a user logs in after an alert has been canceled, they should not see any past alerts.

Who puts out the warnings?

Enterprise Risk Management in collaboration with the UCR Police Department puts out the warnings.

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More News January 03, 2020

The nationwide debate continues surrounding the efficacy and potential civil rights violations of college-admissions tests, like the SAT, as discussed in a recent UCR News story and a series of articles in the LA Times.

One prominent argument against standardized testing is the socio-economic barrier created by the high cost of test preparation resources and tutors, which disadvantaged students and underrepresented minorities often cannot afford.

At the start of each new year, we are reminded that many graduate programs also require admissions tests -- ranging from the MCAT, the GRE, and the LSAT, among others -- which perpetuate these obstacles for students who hope to pursue advanced degrees.

To address this critical social justice issue for our community, the UCR Library offers free resources that support student success both in their coursework at UC Riverside and toward their future aspirations.

One such resource is PrepSTEP, a highly-acclaimed eLearning platform with interactive tutorials, practice tests, and more.

Free to use for currently-registered UCR students, PrepSTEP includes a full suite of dynamic eLearning resources, including:

• Practice tests for graduate admissions exams (including the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MAT, MCAT and PCAT)
• Tutorials in core math, science and English skills
• College success skills
• Career preparation
• Basic computer skills
• Placement test preparation
• eBooks
• Resources for Spanish speakers

To find PrepSTEP on the library’s website, visit: Library.ucr.edu > databases > search for “PrepSTEP” -- or use this short-link (which works best on campus or when logged in through VPN): bit.ly/ucr-testprep

The library’s one-year trial will conclude on June 30, 2020. Extension of the PrepSTEP license will depend on how frequently library users access this resource. Try it today and let your library staff know whether you found it helpful!

Collection Strategist for Arts and Humanities Carla Arbagey is available by email or phone for assistance with PrepSTEP.

More News October 01, 2018

This month in 4 to Explore, your Special Collections librarians and archivists have selected four new items with a "back to school" theme and placed them on hold in the reading room.

Here's what you can see this October in 4 to Explore:

Campus Guide & Handbook, 1996-1997 
Suggestions for 20+ years ago

The Sproul Memoirs, 1958
Beautiful photos of early campus

Tartan, 1954
UCR's first yearbook

Long Range Development Plan, 1964
A time of expansion and growth

Why you should try 4 to Explore:

Special Collections materials are kept in closed stacks, which means you can’t see the shelves and browse. You also can’t check things out and take them home. So, 4 to Explore is a great way to experience first-hand some of the collections that truly make the UCR Library unique.

4 to Explore will give you the chance to visit a reading room, like the ones that are used for archival research or by rare book scholars, and to get a sampling of our collections without having to submit a request ahead of time.

You’ll be asked to show photo ID and to check your bags – but don’t worry! Our UCR Library staff will explain everything to you when you arrive.

We will also have rotating exhibits of items from the collections on display.

Where to find 4 to Explore:

Department: Special Collections & University Archives

Where: Take elevators to 4th floor of Rivera Library

Hours: 11:00 am - 4:00 pm, Monday - Friday

Bring: Photo ID

Don’t bring: Food or drinks

Who: Everyone is welcome. 4 to Explore is more of an individual experience, but we can usually accommodate up to two people using the same item at the same time, so feel free to bring a friend.

What to expect: Staff will help you sign in and feel comfortable in the reading room. It should take about 5-10 minutes for you to get up to the 4th floor and get settled. Then you can stay and enjoy as long as you like!

Want to receive updates each month with more details about our 4 to Explore items? Sign up here.

More News January 09, 2017

UCR Library is currently running a patron-driven acquisition pilot program for the expanded collection of Alexander Street Press streaming videos.

With Alexander Street Press videos, library users can create clips and playlists, quote directly from the video transcript, and discover new content for use in teaching and research.

With this resource, UCR Library can provide our patrons with access to high quality academic films available nowhere else. The collection includes more than 34,000 unique videos that span a broad range of subjects, with more than 7,000 exclusive titles that are offered only by Alexander Street.

Content spans many subject areas, including anthropology, counseling and therapy, business, documentary and feature film, education, history, fashion, music and dance, news and current affairs, and drama.

Publishers in the collection include Sony Pictures Classics, BroadwayHD, Milestone Films, BBC, Bloomberg, Canal+, CRM Learning, Discovery, CBS, HBO, Janus Films (Criterion Collection), Kantola, Medcom, National Geographic, NBC Universal, Opus Arte, Royal Anthropological Institute, First Run Features, and many more.

The trial runs until January 25, 2017. To access the trial, please visit: http://search.alexanderstreet.com/.

UCR Library encourages all users to share this link with their fellow UC Riverside students, faculty, and other researchers.

If you would like to provide feedback, please send your comments to Carla Arbagey, Electronic Resources Librarian, carlar@ucr.edu.

More News May 25, 2017

UCR Library patrons have a new, convenient way to pay online for reproduction services.

Did you even know that you can request copies of materials from our Special Collections department? Indeed, you can, and library staff will provide them for you in research or publication quality, as high-resolution TIFFs, JPEGs, or PDFs. (Details about our reproduction policy are available here.)

Before, library patrons could only pay for reproductions by check, which presented challenges for many library users. “We have collections that are well-known internationally and that have high use by researchers outside the U.S.,” Robin M. Katz, Outreach & Public Services Librarian explained. “People from all over the globe want to consult our materials, and so when we only took checks they had to deal with bank fees and currency exchanges, and mailing checks overseas, so it took a long time. Now it’s faster and better for everyone, but especially for our rather large population of international researchers.”

With the new online platform, Special Collections can accept payments via credit cards, debit cards, or funds in your PayPal account. They new system should also reduce the risk of compromising bank account information if a check got lost in the mail.

To request a reproduction of Special Collections materials, first create an account in our request system. Then submit your request. You will receive an invoice through the request system, which you can pay online. Library staff will deliver a link to your account within the request system, and you will have 30 days to download your documents or images.

For any questions about our holdings or how to access them, please email specialcollections@ucr.edu.

More News March 16, 2021

After more than two years of negotiations, this morning the University of California announced a transformative open access agreement with Elsevier, the world’s largest academic publisher.

This successful outcome is the result of UC’s faculty, librarians and university leadership coming together to stand firm on our goals of making UC research freely available to all and transforming scholarly communication for the better.

The new four-year agreement will go into effect on April 1, 2021, restoring UC’s direct online access to Elsevier journals while accomplishing the university’s two goals for all publisher agreements:

(1) Enabling universal open access to all UC research; and

(2) Containing the excessively high costs associated with licensing journals.

These goals directly support UC’s responsibility as a steward of public funds and its mission as a public university to make its research freely available. The agreement with Elsevier will significantly increase the number of articles covered by UC’s open access agreements.

What the agreement means for the UC community

• Reading access: Effective April 1, UC will regain access to articles published in Elsevier journals the libraries subscribed to before, plus additional journals to which UC previously did not subscribe.
• Open access publishing in Elsevier journals: The agreement will also provide for open access publishing of UC research in more than 2,500 Elsevier journals from day one. The Cell Press and Lancet families of journals will be integrated midway through the four-year agreement; UC’s agreement is the first in the world to provide for open access publishing in the entire suite of these prestigious journals.
• Library support for open access publishing: All articles with a UC corresponding author will be open access by default, with the library automatically paying the first $1,000 of the open access fee (also known as an article publishing charge or APC). Authors will be asked to pay the remainder of the APC if they have research funds available to do so.
• Discounts on publishing: To lower those costs even further for authors, UC has negotiated a 15 percent discount on the APCs for most Elsevier journals; the discount is 10 percent for the Cell Press and Lancet families of journals.
• Full funding support for those who need it: To ensure that all authors have the opportunity to publish their work open access, the library will cover the full amount of the APC for those who do not have sufficient research funds for the author share. Authors may also opt out of open access publishing if they wish.

The economics of the deal

As with UC’s other recent open access agreements, the Elsevier agreement integrates library and author payments into a single, cost-controlled contract. This shared funding model enables the campus libraries to reallocate a portion of our journals budget to help subsidize authors’ APCs — assistance that makes it easier and more affordable for authors to choose to publish open access.

Even with library support, authors’ research funds continue to play a critical role. This funding model only works if authors who do have funds pay their share of the APC.

In the other open access agreements UC has implemented, we are already seeing a significant proportion of authors paying their share of the APC. If this promising trend continues, UC can blaze a path to full open access that is sustainable across ever more publishers.

Partnering with publishers of all types and sizes

Meanwhile, the university continues to forge partnerships with publishers of all types and sizes. In addition to Elsevier, UC also signed open access agreements with three more not-for-profit and society publishers this month — The Company of Biologists, The Royal Society and Canadian Science Publishing. These agreements are in addition to those secured previously with Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press, society publisher ACM, and native open access publishers PLOS and JMIR.

Ultimately, UC’s goal is to make it possible for all authors to publish their work open access in whatever journal they choose — providing broad public access to the fruits of UC’s research. This month, we have made a tremendous stride in that direction. We know that this has been a lengthy process and we thank you for your patience and support as we worked to reach this outcome.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Tiffany Moxham, Associate University Librarian for Content and Discovery, at any time.

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More Past Exhibits September 13, 2023

This exhibition showcases the life and work of author, poet, teacher, activist, and past UCR Chancellor Tomás Rivera. Rivera was born in 1935 to Mexican migrant workers, and was among the first generation of Chicanos to earn a PhD. He worked tirelessly to make higher education accessible to students from underrepresented communities. He also took an active role in supporting Chicano/a youth groups and anti-violence programs in local high schools.

Rivera’s contributions to literature, civic life, and higher education are illustrated by materials from his archives. Original objects on display include family photographs, professional papers, and works from the Chicano Renaissance including a first edition of Rivera's novel …y no se lo tragó la tierra and a hand-written chapter from this celebrated work.

Rivera died at the age of 48, but his work as an advocate for social change and advancement through education still resonates today. His name and legacy are kept alive in many ways, including through the renaming of UCR’s first library in his memory, shortly after his passing in 1984.

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