More News July 26, 2022

The last time the Library participated in an in-person Highlander Orientation event was back in 2019. 

The summer of 2022 saw the return of in-person Highlander Orientation sessions. The two-day orientation, mandatory for all incoming first-year students, has 11 sessions throughout July and August and is an opportunity for incoming Highlanders to familiarize themselves with campus technology tools, register for classes, and discover campus services and resources. 

The UCR Library participates on the first day of the orientation, during the Involvement Fair on Pierce Lawn. The fair offers incoming Highlanders and their parents a relaxed environment where they can learn about UCR departments and clubs on campus. 

Early Experience Teaching Librarian Michael Yonezawa was thrilled to have the opportunity to connect with incoming Highlanders once again. 

“Words cannot express how meaningful it has been to welcome our newest Highlanders to UCR in-person,” Michael said. “Seeing their smiling faces and sharing with them the many services and resources waiting for them when they return to campus in the fall is special and should never be taken for granted.” 

Students coming to UCR from high school or a community college may not know all that a university academic library at a tier 1 research institution like UCR offers.

“The closest comparison would be going from a pond or lake in the case of a high school library,  to perhaps the rivers and seas at a community college, to the vastness of the oceans at a university academic library — such as the one at UCR. In addition, UCR students have access to information available across the entire UC System and beyond through services such as Interlibrary Loans,” Michael explained. 

Special Collections Public Services Outreach & Community Engagement Librarian Sandy Enriquez also participated in the Involvement Fairs. Sandy sees the value in connecting with students early in their college careers. 

“I think it's important to plant a seed early on about what the Library offers. The longer you’re in your academic program, the more central the Library and its resources become. If you know from the get-go that there are experts here, ready to help you and connect you to different resources, it saves you time and energy later on,” Sandy said. 

Highlander Orientation is also an opportunity to let incoming students know that the UCR Library is a welcoming space and it’s here for all Highlanders to use. 

“Students will often experience library anxiety which can include a sense of not knowing how to use the Library to feelings of not belonging,” Michael explained. “The sooner we can reach out to new students, the sooner we can let them know that the UCR Library is our Library and that it is a welcoming space for everyone to come learn, explore, and discover.”

• Read more about Frequently Asked Questions: OpenAthens and GlobalProtect VPN

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 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 04, 2025

Effective July 1, 2025, open access publishing options with the American Chemical Society (ACS) will change for UC, SCELC, and CSU authors. 

At this time, authors who wish to publish under an open access license on the ACS platform will be responsible for covering the full cost of the discounted Article Processing Charge (APC). The option for authors without available research funding to request full coverage of the APC will end on June 30, 2025.

Authors who wish to publish in an ACS journal but do not want to publish open access can still publish articles as paywalled (pay-to-read or subscription-only) content.

Reading access to ACS journals will continue without interruption, essentially reverting to the type of agreement UC had with ACS prior to the open access publishing agreement that began in July 2022.

If you have any questions about this change with ACS, or about open access publishing options at UC in general, please don’t hesitate to reach out to STEM Collection Strategist Michele Potter.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is UC changing its support model for open access publishing with ACS?
The current agreement UC, CSU and SCELC have with ACS was built on the assumption that if authors with research funds available to pay APCs could help to shoulder their costs, the library could stretch its limited financial resources to make OA publication an option for those authors without available funds.

Over the course of the agreement, the percentage of authors who were able to contribute from their research funds decreased to levels well below those of other agreements operating on a similar principle. The resulting cost increases to the libraries under the model are proving to be unsustainable and we have been unable to find an alternate pathway with ACS that would sustain a UC-supported open access publishing option.

As a UC author who publishes with ACS, can I still publish open access?
Yes. We appreciate your commitment to making your research freely available. You can still elect to publish your article open access with ACS, but starting July 1, 2025, you will no longer see the option to ask the library to cover the full cost of publication. At that time, authors will be responsible for covering a single, discounted article processing charge (APC) of $3,000. Authors who are publishing in subscription/hybrid journals may opt out of open access and publish behind a paywall at no additional cost.

As always, authors have the option to deposit their pre-publication, peer-reviewed author accepted manuscript in an open access repository like arXiv or UC’s eScholarship for free.

What does this mean for UC’s other open access publishing agreements?
UC’s open access agreements with other publishers are also unaffected. Open access funding support remains available to UC-affiliated researchers who publish in journals covered under these other agreements, and authors are encouraged to take advantage of it.

What happens next?
UC, SCELC, and CSU libraries plan to negotiate for a new ACS agreement to start on January 1, 2026, for a longer-term approach to support authors and readers of ACS journals. The current agreement was already scheduled to expire on December 31, 2025.

• Read more about Arts & Humanities

More News November 19, 2013

Grant from Metabolic Studio helps to make 100-year-old photos and documents available online.

By Ross French

The above photo of the Soledad Siphon was taken in 1913 by Walter L. Huber and is a part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Collection. The image shows a section of pipeline that is approximately 8500 feet long. For scale, a car can be seen in the center of the photo. PHOTO COURTESY UCR LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Los Angeles Aqueduct celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and the University of California, Riverside Libraries have joined the celebration by digitizing and publishing online a collection of hundreds of photos and documents and other materials that detail the history of one of the most ambitious public works projects of all time.

While the library has made content available through their Digital Collections in the past, the “LA Aqueduct Digitization Project” marks the first time that UC Riverside has systematically digitized a collection of this size. The project was made possible through a grant from Metabolic Studio, which also supported the efforts of other Southern California institutions to select, digitize, and make available unique materials available online, including historical photos of and documents about the construction of the aqueduct.

“This support from the Metabolic Studio allowed the UCR Libraries to test and implement best practices for digitization, workflows, and metadata creation, and to reveal and make available previously hidden, unique historic resources about the construction of the LA Aqueduct,” said Diane Bisom, project director and associate university librarian for information technology and systems. “The variety of materials – documents, photographs, published materials, maps, etc. – allowed us to push the envelope on our digitization, workflow, and metadata creation activities, and to involve staff from many areas of the libraries.”

“The aqueduct project forced us into some hard thinking on how to make the digital content available in an easy to use way,” agreed UCR Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble, who added that all the content meets the guidelines of the system wide UC Libraries Digital Collection (UCLDC) Implementation Project, which upon its completion in 2015, will create a shared, comprehensive platform for the management and display of content.  “We did it that way so that no effort was wasted.”

This invitation to the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and Exposition Park from 1913 is
one of the featured items of the collection and a favorite of both Bisom and Milenkiewicz.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UCR LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

The content that was digitized is part of the UCR’s Water Resources Collections and Archives (WRCA), a world-renown collection of unique, contemporary and historic materials on all aspects of water resources and issues in California and the western United States. The collections included in the project are:

• Mono Lake Committee Collection

• Joseph Barlow Lippincott Papers

• Charles H. Lee Papers

• Charles H. Lee Photograph Collection

• Walter L. Huber Papers

• Walter L. Huber Photograph Collection

• John Debo Galloway Papers

“We’ll continue to expand the LA Aqueduct digital presence by adding mapping and timeline features, and selected published material.  We’ll begin digitization of other unique collections from the Libraries’ Archives, and we’ll continue to make our digitized collections widely available,” Bisom said.

The collection utilizes a free, open-source web publishing platform called Omeka that is used by libraries, archives and museums around the world to display and discover library and archival collections.

“Omeka allowed us to easily batch upload metadata records into the system and then attach each of the associated digital objects for online display,” said Eric Milenkiewicz, archivist in Special Collections and Archives and project manager of the aqueduct project. “Without Omeka, it would have taken considerable IT staff time to design a database and user interface for digital collections. It provided us with a lightweight solution to managing and providing access to our digital content.”

Several steps went in to the addition of each piece of content. The physical item is digitized according to standards outlined in the Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials by the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI). The document is then saved using a pre-established naming convention. Descriptive and administrative metadata is created for the item and entered into a spreadsheet before being put into the Omeka database. All of the original materials are maintained as part of the Water Resources Collections and Archives physical holdings.

“There are also several quality control checkpoints along the way to make sure that individual items are properly digitized/saved and that the metadata is accurate,” Milenkiewicz said. “Multiple staff members are involved in this process that takes approximately 10 minutes per item, start to finish.”

Milenkiewicz and Bisom said that several other digitization projects are on tap, including sections of the Tomás Rivera Archive, selected materials from the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and bound volumes of the Highlander Student Newspaper dating back to the campus’ founding.

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 Past Exhibits March 23, 2023

Footsteps to You - Chattel Slavery

Ownership in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty of another.

1 : a piece of property (as animals, money, or goods) other than real estate

2 : Slave

“Publications and artifacts from the 1800s help us to obtain a greater insight and understanding of the institution of slavery in America as it relates to the growth and development of this country. These items can also help us to understand and appreciate the courage and strength millions of enslaved African men, women, and children had to possess in order to endure, overcome and fight against the physical and psychological terrors of slavery. It educates us on the tremendous abuses leveled on humans for over 300 years to build the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of this world.” - The Gore Collection

This exhibition of original artifacts from the collection of Jerry Gore encompasses a specific portion of the Era of Enslavement in the United States. It allows students to view up close documents such as tax receipts from the sale of human beings, wills passing property from one generation to the next, first edition slave narratives, and slave shackles. As we learn from the Gore Collection, curated by the Black Voice Foundation, we will ask several questions including: If presented with the opportunity, which side of history would you choose?

Historian Jerry Gore believed that “you can’t talk about the Underground Railroad without talking about slavery." His goal during the span of his career was to tell the most clear and concise vision of what slavery was all about so that visitors to his hometown of Maysville, Kentucky could better appreciate those pearls about people trying to make it to freedom. This partnership with the Black Voice Foundation (Gore Collection) and University of California, Riverside now brings these unique artifacts to the Inland Empire.
The Black Voice Foundation has hosted over 1400 educators on the Footsteps to Freedom tour where they have walked the steps of freedom seekers from the 1800s for more than 21 years. This experience allows you to look with empathy through the eyes of those who were on the historic journey of the Underground Railroad.

About the Foundation:

The Black Voice Foundation was founded in 1988 with a mission to train and educate individuals in print media. With the digital revolution, the rapid growth of technology in the world of communications and media, and the need to impact lives through a diverse set of multi media platforms; the foundation has expanded its mission to include a new set of projects in the area of education, professional development, history, and the arts.

University of California, Riverside

The Tomás Rivera Library serves as the main library of the campus providing access to materials in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Special Collections & University Archives house archives and manuscript collections, photographs, maps, books, and other rare or unique research material that document a wide range of subject areas. As a partner of the American Collections Advisory Board, UCR Library's has planned collaborative efforts to share, create, and sustain knowledge among ethnic groups whose history and experiences are woven into the fabric of the country.

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More News February 24, 2017

January 2017 saw the release of Duplicator Underground: The Independent Publishing Industry in Communist Poland, 1976-89 (Slavica Publishers), edited by UCR Deputy University Librarian Ann Frenkel, retired UCR Librarian Gwido Zlatkes, and Polish historian Paweł Sowiński.

The book is the first comprehensive scholarly discussion in English of Polish independent publishing in the 1970s and 1980s. Underground publishing reached a semi-industrial scale and represented a significant social movement which ultimately contributed to the end of Communism in Poland. The book sheds light onto the phenomenon of the Polish so-called “second circulation,” including discussions of various aspects of underground printing, distribution, and circulation of independent publications.  The book includes scholarly essays as well as primary source documents.

Deputy University Librarian Frenkel and Zlatkes, a librarian with graduate degrees in philology and Jewish history, have been working together for almost 20 years as translators and editors. This volume represents their collaboration with Professor Sowinski who is a specialist in underground publishing in East-Central Europe, dissident movements, mass-leisure, and festivals.

While working in both Special Collections and in Metadata Services in the UCR Library, Zlatkes noticed that many of the fanzines in the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy had been printed in the same way that most underground publications were made when he lived in Poland and was involved as a journalist and editor with the Polish dissident movement during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Zlatkes stated in the book’s introduction that while scholarly writings to date frequently recognize the role of independent publishing in the Polish anticommunist dissident movement, very little exists that focuses on the technical aspect of printing and production. Duplicator Underground is intended to fill that void.

The genesis for this book came in 2011, when Zlatkes was awarded the American Printing History Association Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History, and embarked on a six-week scouting trip to Poland. Further research was supported by grants from the Librarians Association of the University of California. Then in 2013-2014, when Zlatkes was selected as a Fulbright Research Scholar, he spent nine months studying underground printing in Poland at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This research cemented the collaboration between the three editors, particularly with Paweł Sowiński who helped form the active network of authors who contributed their scholarly output for the book.

 In addition to scholarly articles, “Duplicator Underground” includes contemporary narratives and testimonies from publishers, editors, printers, distributors, and even police officials. The book shares stories about how anonymous activists and near-obsolete technologies changed history amidst a climate of government censorship where printing anything without state permission – even obituaries and wedding invitations – was deemed a punishable offense.

Frenkel said, “This anthology is valuable not only for researchers, but also for use in teaching. What better way to introduce students to the topic than reading firsthand about the methods employed by underground printers to evade a police 'tail,' or a detailed description of homespun printing techniques that use underwear elastic and laundry detergent?”

Duplicator Underground is available at the UCR Library, as well as for purchase from Amazon.