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More News June 26, 2017

The University of California, Riverside hosted the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) 2017 conference from Wednesday, June 28 to Saturday, July 1.

This year's conference theme was "Unknown Pasts / Unseen Futures."

Home to the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, UCR also runs the Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science graduate program, and has a robust research community focused on speculative fiction across media.

UC Riverside’s collaboration with SFRA was due to the backing of UCR Library and the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS), with a significant amount of funding and staff support made available by CHASS Dean Milagros Peña. “Without Dean Peña’s support, we wouldn’t even have started down the path of having a conference,” said Dr. Sherryl Vint, Director, Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science.

“We are absolutely delighted that UCR hosted the SFRA 2017 conference,” said Alison Scott, Associate University Librarian for Collections & Scholarly Communication. “Bringing scholars, students, and creative artists to campus was such a great opportunity for shared learning and engagement. We’re thrilled!”

JJ Jacobson, UCR Library’s inaugural Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, was one of the panelists at the SFRA conference. Her discussion was about the dialogue between researchers and curators.

“We talked with a UCR graduate student who has done research in the Eaton Collection,” Jacobson explained. “We talked about her experience and how researchers and librarians can work together, what constitutes librarians’ work and what constitutes researchers’ work."

According to SFRA, the “Unknown Pasts / Unseen Future” theme grew out of their 2016 conference, which was centered on the history of science fiction that has yet to be sufficiently addressed in scholarship, including marginalized or otherwise neglected bodies of work. The conference theme also reflected UCR’s commitment to science fiction scholarship that is focused on imagining and creating sustainable and inclusive futures. The focus was equally on new voices in the field and the new kinds of futures that emerge from this broader sense of the field’s membership.

Founded in 1970, SFRA is the oldest professional association dedicated to the scholarly inquiry into science fiction. The association works to improve classroom teaching; encourage and assist scholarship; and to evaluate and publicize new books and magazines dealing with fantastic literature and film, teaching methods and materials, and allied media performances.

"One of the reasons I started having our graduate students co-curate exhibits was to give them another modality through which to speak," Jacobson explained. "They’re really good with words because they’re writing all the time – articles, talks, dissertations – but an exhibit is a very different thing. It’s not just words, it’s not just words and images. An exhibit is a display of works that already exist, so they’re already part of the public conversation, which are put together to tell a story about some aspect of speculative fiction, science fiction, or fantasy. It’s important to me because here are these inquisitive, caring, extremely hard-working young people who are actively committed to using speculative fiction to encourage the world to change. It was important that the Eaton Collection help them find a new kind of voice, to expand how they contribute to the world in terms of public goods.”

As an additional perk, the Eaton Collection granted access to conference attendees only from June 26 to 28, between the hours of 10:00 am and 4:00 pm. The 2017 SFRA conference was held at the Marriott Riverside located at 3400 Market Street, 92501. For the full conference program, panel list, and more, please visit the SFRA conference website.

More News April 23, 2021

The UCR Library has recently acquired access to the digital archive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).

This archive completes the library’s collection of digital archives from Wiley, which includes the New York Academy of Sciences, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal Geographical Society.

This archive documents 150 years of scientific discovery, from the BAAS’ founding in 1831 through the 1970s. The materials within track Britain’s emergence as a center for science and provide an insider’s perspective that researchers can’t get anywhere else: more than ninety percent of the content within this unique archive has never been cataloged or available digitally until now.

The BAAS embodied the organized, and successful, efforts of the British scientific community to transform science from a self-funded endeavor of the wealthy into a government-funded professional activity at the center of social and economic development. In 2009, BAAS became the British Science Association (BSA). The new association has expanded on the original mission of putting science at the center of society, culture and education, and is focused on increasing the number, range and diversity of people actively engaged with scientific studies, activities and developments.

This is the only archive connecting the works, thoughts, and interactions of the most influential scientists of the time, from Darwin to Ramsay, and documenting the history of British science from the 1830s through the 1970s across disciplines and universities.

Use this link to access the British Association for the Advancement of Science. If connecting from off-campus, be sure to sign into the Global Connect VPN first.

More News November 10, 2017

On Nov. 2-4, several UCR Library staff members contributed programs and poster sessions for the California Libraries Association (CLA) Annual Conference in Riverside, CA. The 2017 conference theme was, “New Worlds Emerge.”

Maker Services Librarian Krista Ivy, Open Research Librarian Michele Potter, and Data Librarian Kat Koziar gave a presentation session called From Zero to Makerspace: The UC Riverside Creat’R Lab Story. “It was well attended, and the audience was engaged with what we presented,” Koziar said.

Data Librarian Kat Koziar, Special Collections Public Services Assistant Zayda Delgado, Head of Preservation Services Patricia Smith-Hunt, Preservation Assistant Sara Stilley, and Director of Distinctive Collections Cherry Williams collaborated on a poster presentation titled, New Technologies, New Worlds. The poster showed the evolution of books across a timeline from 2500 BCE to present day, highlighting the most significant inventions used to create, package, disseminate, and access information.

“We took several items from our teaching collection and people who stopped by got to see and touch the transformative technologies our poster highlighted,” Delgado said. “Conference attendees really enjoyed the hands-on experience.”

Social Sciences Teaching Librarian Christina Cicchetti gave a poster presentation called Promoting School Readiness Through Diverse Children’s Books, which she prepared in collaboration with Dr. Ashaunta Anderson, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the UCR School of Medicine and Principal Investigator for the Cultural Pride Reinforcement for Early School Readiness research project; Sharon Rushing, PhD candidate in the UCR Department of Anthropology; and Dr. Annette Goldsmith, Lecturer at the University of Washington Information School.

“The study will distribute books to children during well-child visits to their pediatrician,” explained Cicchetti, who serves with Goldsmith on a community advisory board that helped to select books used in the study and prepared an informational handout for parents.

University Programs Teaching Librarian Judy Lee organized and led a Riverside Asian American Walking Tour on Sunday, Nov. 5, after the CLA Conference concluded.

Carla Arbagey, Collection Strategist for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) led a tour of the UCR Library for attendees from the CLA conference.

“I had a lot of fun showing off our libraries and our campus,” Arbagey said. “Of course, the highlight of the tour was our visit to Special Collections and University Archives, and everyone was excited to see the home of the Eaton Collection.” Katz shared program goals and findings for 4 to Explore, along with the featured items from the current and prior months.

When showing Project Bi Nary by Steven McCarthy (nicknamed the “pillow book” by library staff), a recent acquisition from the September road show with Vamp & Tramp Artists Booksellers, Arbagey had an a-ha! moment: “I saw how one item from our collection can show how the seemingly disparate departments in our library are actually very connected.” The tour group first encountered it when they met with Patricia Smith-Hunt in Preservation, who explained how Preservation creates custom-made, acid free boxes to store special collections items.

Then in Special Collections, Katz explained that she had suggested the book as a purchase because it could be featured as part of a Creat'R Lab event on crafting and artists' books.

“So, you can see how our tour, which went from the Creat'R Lab to Preservation to SCUA, could be connected by this single (and very cool) book!” Arbagey concluded.

More News November 01, 2024

Registration is now open for the 5th annual UC GIS Week conference, which will be held virtually from November 19-21, 2024.

Initiated by the University of California GIS Leadership Committee, which our Geospatial Information Librarian Janet Reyes sits on, the conference will feature presentations, lightning talks, and a virtual map/poster gallery, all centering on geospatial research and applications.

The registration link, and more information on UC GIS Week, can be found on the UC GIS Week 2024 website. 

Both GIS experts and those new to GIS are welcome to attend! Join for one or multiple sessions of the event series, which is thought to be one of the largest GIS Day observations in the world.

Students, researchers and instructors from across the University of California will share their cutting-edge knowledge and expertise with each other and with the wider community.

Topic areas will include:

• National Zoning Atlas: A New Public Tool and Database
• GIS & AI: Tree Range Maps, Drones, and Digitizing
• Urban Environment: From Latin America to California
• Opportunities for Current Students: Panel
• Geospatial Opportunities: From Humanitarian Work to the UCs & Bhutan
• GIS Integrations for Campus Operations
• Climate Effects on Food, Agriculture and the Environment
• Ecology: Seed Collection, Desert Fires, and Tropical Lagoons
• GIS for Policy: Health, Transportation, and Zoning

All sessions are free and open to the public. 

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More News May 05, 2017

Diversity and inclusion have been discussed in the academic and library settings for some time.

On Monday, May 15, 2017, the Diversity Committee and the Programs Committee of the Librarians Association of the University of California, Riverside (LAUC-R) will present a panel of speakers who will provide a snapshot of where we are today, in the profession and at the local campus level. What can UCR librarians contribute to diversity and inclusion?  Let’s have an open dialogue about areas we can impact and actions we could take to enhance our roles in the library and contribute to the academic environment.

What:                    “Diversity, Inclusion, and the UCR Library”
                                Panel Presentation and Discussion/Q&A

When:                  Monday, May 15, 2017, 1:00-3:00 pm

Where:                 Rm. 240, Orbach Science Library

Who:                     UCR librarians, library staff, and open to audience members interested in diversity, inclusion, and academic libraries

Staff Panelists: 

• Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Social Sciences Librarian at Sacramento State University (formerly UCR) and active in professional library organizations on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Mariam Beevi Lam, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion at UCR

Student Services Panelists:

• Arlene Cano Matute, Program Coordinator from Chicano Student Programs and UCR alumna
• Nancy Jean Tubbs, Director of the LGBT Resource Center.

Light refreshments will be served.