More News September 14, 2020

On Monday, Sept. 28, the UCR Library will launch Ask a Student, a chat service to help new and returning UC Riverside students navigate campus and get timely assistance from fellow UCR students.

Ask a Student will be available Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; students can submit questions by email outside of those hours. Starting on Sept. 28, students will have three ways to access Ask a Student: via chat widgets on the library's Ask Us page, the new Ask UCR webpage, and the Keep Learning website.

Jointly managed by the library's Teaching & Learning and Research Services departments, Ask a Student will provide a place for students to connect with peers to get to the resources they need to be successful in the remote learning environment.

“One aim of this program is to support the Dean of Students’ initiative to build connections and feelings of belonging among the student body, despite our physical distance,” explained Dani Cook, the library's Director of Teaching and Learning.

Returning library student employees will staff Ask a Student, under the supervision of Teaching and Learning Services Coordinator Christopher Martone and Research Services Department Assistant Margarita Yonezawa.

“We still have Ask a Librarian for in-depth research questions,” Cook added. “And the student staff will be able to transfer questions between the services if needed.”

“The UCR Library looks forward to launching this new service to support our students. We hope it will be a useful complement to the ScottyBot, which focuses on financial aid and residential life, and help build a sense of connection for our students,” said Ann Frenkel, Deputy University Librarian. “We are grateful to our campus partners for helping us identify the need for this kind of service, and for taking the time to share details and scenarios with our student staff, so we can provide the best service possible.”

These partners include: the Dean of Students, Academic Resource Center, Basic Needs, CARE, CAPS, GSOE Academic Advising, the Ombuds, the Registrar, Residential Life, Student Life, the Student Disability Resource Center, Undergraduate Education, and The Well.

 

 

More News February 18, 2016

Tiffany López is an inspiration not only on the University of California, Riverside campus, but regionally and nationally as well. She is dedicated to creating awareness of cultural history, and providing insight into the intersection of art and creative production’s role in personal and social change.

López is a professor in the UCR Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production, and Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS). She has been teaching at UC Riverside for nearly two decades, and her dedication to introducing students to Chicana/Chicano and Latina/Latino history and culture has been a driving force in her work.

As part of the UCR Library's Latino Americans: 500 Years of History programming series in March, López will lead a scholarly discussion and give a dramatic reading from the Segundo Jueves Latina/o Play Project. She will read an excerpt of "Y No Se Lo Trago La Tierra" by Tomás Rivera, past UCR chancellor and the first Mexican-American chancellor in the UC system.

The Play Project is a series of performances including dramatic readings, plays, music, and dance from Latina/o cultural writings and works that López has developed as living, shared artwork using the medium of theatrical performance. A Segundo Jueves Latina/o Play Project performance will be presented at the Culver Center in April, 2016.

More News April 29, 2022

The UCR Library is experimenting with an innovative research tool that offers users a new way of viewing and discovering information.  

Artificial intelligence-powered research has landed at UC Riverside with the library’s adoption of Yewno Discover. The new research tool aims to help users perform meaningful research in a short amount of time.  

How does Yewno Discover work? Enter a concept into Yewno Discover and users will see a knowledge map. The primary concept searched for appears as a prominent node in the center of the map and is surrounded by smaller nodes representing connected (or secondary) concepts. These secondary concepts appear due to Yewno Discover’s built-in AI that ingests and scans information from sources like Wikipedia to deliver related concepts that may aid the user in their research.  

Once a primary or secondary node is selected, the user will be able to read a brief overview of the concept, view additional information on related concepts, and access documents on the concept, such as articles and books, that take a user directly to the relevant parts of the text.  

For certain users, what may have taken hours of searching using traditional methods might just take a single research session on Yewno Discover.  

“People think and learn differently,” explained Michele Potter, the UCR Library’s Collection Strategist for STEM. “With Yewno Discover, the idea is to offer people a new way to see and use information.” 

Potter has been working with Yewno Discover to refine and optimize the research platform to better serve the needs of the UCR community. She hopes to receive feedback from UCR users on what they enjoy about the tool and suggestions for improvement.  

Unlike other research engines, Yewno Discover’s emphasis is on exploration. While some may prefer conventional research methods, Yewno Discover’s unique way of allowing users to engage with information can be valuable for the more inquisitive.  

While using the tool, if a user notices a secondary concept they are not aware of, or the user is simply curious about what these concepts have in common, users can “generate a relationship” between a primary and secondary concept to see what the two selected concepts have in common.  

“Yewno Discover is particularly useful to use when trying to understand relationships between concepts,” Potter said. "It's a way of exploring a concept that's very holistic. Maybe you won’t learn in a linear fashion, but at the end of the day, you're probably going to have a pretty thorough understanding of the concept you searched for.” 

UCR students, faculty, and researchers can try out this innovative discovery tool right from the search bar at library.ucr.edu. Type in a concept and the user can connect to Yewno Discover along with UC Library Search, WorldCat Discovery, and other research resources. Users can also visit discover.yewno.com. 

If you want to learn more about Yewno Discover, read the library’s Yewno Discover Guide. 

More News July 22, 2020

UC Riverside Library is continuing its focus on expanding access to heavily demanded electronic content with a new local license to the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE).

JoVE is the world-leading producer and provider of science videos with the mission to improve scientific research and education, according to the company’s website.

Content available to UCR includes the journals, Science Core modules, Science Education Modules, and the Lab Manual.

“This provides the UCR campus with a tremendous amount of engaging and well-presented video content in subjects such as chemistry, the biological sciences, medicine, engineering, earth science, physics, psychology, and environmental sciences,” said Michele Potter, Collection Strategist for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

Filmed at the world’s top scientific institutions, JoVE videos bring to life cutting-edge experiments, enable replication of new research methods and technologies, and empower effective pedagogy for science concepts and laboratory methods. They also support quick in-depth comprehension of complex STEM subjects to increase student engagement and learning outcomes, and support innovative teaching initiatives such as blended learning and flipped classroom.

JoVE was co-founded by a stem cell lab researcher at Princeton University, Moshe Pritsker, shortly after finishing his Ph.D., transforming 450 years of scientific publishing tradition. A decade later, JoVE remains the first and only peer-reviewed scientific video journal, releasing more than 100 new videos every month.

The UCR Library’s subscription will run through September 2021. For more Information, contact Michele Potter.

More News September 22, 2017

The University of California, Riverside Library will host International Open Access Week 2017, as part of a global effort called Open Access Week.

The event will be on Wednesday, Oct. 25, in the Orbach Science Library, Room 240, from 9:30 am - 11:00 am. “Open in Order to Save Data for Future Research” is the 2017 event theme.

Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn about the potential benefits of sharing what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make “open access” a new norm in scholarship, research and data planning and preservation.

The Open Access movement is made of up advocates (librarians, publishers, university repositories, etc.) who promote the free, immediate, and online publication of research.

The program will provide information on issues related to saving open data, including climate change and scientific data.  The panelists also will describe open access projects in which they have participated to save climate data and to preserve end-of-term presidential data, information likely to be and utilized by the university community for research and scholarship.

The program includes:

• Brianna Marshall, Director of Research Services:  Brianna will welcome guests and introduce the panelists.

• John Baez, Professor of Mathematics, UC Riverside:  John was involved in saving US government climate data during the presidential transitions. (time, date, topic not confirmed yet)

• Perry Willett, Digital Preservation Project Manager, California Digital Library:  Perry will share the work he has done at CDL on the promotion and usage of open data initiatives.

• Kat Koziar, Data Librarian: Kat will give an overview of DASH, the UC system data repository, and provide suggestions for researchers interested in making their data open.

This will be the eighth International Open Access Week program hosted by the UCR Library.

The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP: openaccess2017.eventbrite.com

More News October 12, 2015

Library launches program series surrounding Latino American experience

On October 9th, the UCR Library hosted a kickoff reception to launch a year of programming supported by the Latino Americans 500 Years of History grant. Awarded to the library earlier this year by the National Endowment of Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), the grant funds a series of programs focused on the Latino American experience. Events over the course of the next year will include documentary screenings and performances by project scholars.

Paul D’Anieri, Vice-Chancellor and Provost of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Steven Mandeville-Gamble, University Librarian discussed UCR’s role as a Hispanic Serving Institution and champion of diversity, and the library’s commitment to supporting that effort. Drs. Tiffany Lopez, Jonathan Ritter, and Jennifer Najera detailed their involvement in the year’s events, and program partner UCR Chicano Student Programs provided insight into the potential effect of these programs on their student populations. Community members in attendance shared stories about their lives and work in the community to promote continued and renewed interest in Latino Chicano American heritage and history.

The ALA and NEH designed the Latino Americans 500 Years of History grant to be inclusive of all members of the campus and local communities. Project partners such as the Center for Social Justice, Spanish Town Heritage Foundation, and several branches of Riverside Public Library will provide venues for some of the year's programs.

"We hope that this grant will foster a tradition of collaborative curriculum and promote further interest in the preservation of local community history," said grant Project Director Anthony Sanchez. The grant has received strong support from national student organizations such as MEXUS, as well as state and local public officials, many of whom attended the reception. The event provided a rare opportunity for cross-community conversations about upcoming projects and possible collaborations.

More News July 29, 2024

We are excited to announce the launch of our new Acquisitions, Description, and Discovery (ADD) Department, effective July 1.

This new department merges our former Acquisitions Unit and Metadata and Technical Services Department, creating a unified team aimed at enhancing discoverability and access to library print and electronic resources.

The creation of ADD is part of the Library's commitment to improving workflows and aligning with the latest advancements in library management systems. These systems have evolved to become comprehensive hubs for data, visualization, and workflow management.

“The formation of ADD has been a long time in the making, having been planned prior to the pandemic, with a pilot occurring as far back as 2016. This last year saw the convergence of the pieces needed for implementation,” says Tiffany Moxham, Deputy University Librarian and Assistant University Librarian for Content and Discovery.  

Tiffany continues, “First the arrival of an experienced Director in Darren Furey, several years of ALMA and PRIMO knowledge, a team ready to expand after several years of retirements, and a clearer sense of the next phase of the Library’s collection strategies in relation to electronic, print and digital holdings and as part of a system where transformative agreements and their innate challenges are at the center of the shared resource landscape.”

What does ADD do? ADD manages UCR Library resources from the moment they are purchased until they’re available to patrons. This includes ordering and receiving new books and materials, processing payments, and ensuring these resources can be easily found through UC Library Search. ADD is also responsible for describing and organizing the Library’s digitized collections, making them easily accessible on platforms like Calisphere.

Darren Furey, formerly the UCR Library’s Director of Metadata and Technical Services, now leads ADD as its Director.

“I'm excited to have brought the Acquisitions Unit and the Metadata and Technical Services Department together,” Darren says. “Being one small but mighty team will help facilitate strategic cross-training, some of which is already underway, and it will give acquisitions and metadata staff a greater understanding of each others' responsibilities, needs, and challenges.”

Darren adds, “Together, librarians and staff in ADD are analyzing our current workflows to determine whether they still meet our needs, the needs of other Library departments, and, most importantly, the needs of our users. Everything we do should in some way add value for the students, faculty, and staff who rely on our expertise and ingenuity.”

ADD is in the process of hiring two Metadata Catalogers and an Acquisitions, Description, and Discovery Supervisor. The Metadata Catalogers will handle a variety of materials to ensure resources are accurately cataloged and easily discoverable, while the supervisor position will provide technical expertise and oversee Library Assistants.

Whether you are a student conducting research, a faculty member seeking teaching materials, or a community member exploring our collections, ADD ensures that you can easily find and access the information you need. By optimizing our resource management and discovery processes, we’re enhancing the overall user experience and supporting UCR’s academic and research goals.   

More News September 17, 2018

The UCR Library and UCR Information Technology Solutions prepared this brief tutorial to introduce you to our new Wepa Cloud Printing system at the University of California, Riverside.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this tutorial:

• How to create a Wepa account
• How to upload and print documents using Wepa
• Where to find Wepa print kiosks on the UCR campus

The launch date for the new Wepa cloud printing system at UCR is September 17, 2018.

There are 14 Wepa print kiosks located at several different locations on the UCR campus:

Wepa cloud printing has four basic steps:

1. Create your account
2. Select funds
3. Upload documents
4. Release the print job

There are also four benefits to using the Wepa system that we didn’t have with other printing services:

1. Anyone can print with Wepa, not just UCR students, faculty and staff.
2. Patrons now have more ways to pay, not just with Bear Bucks.
3. You can send print jobs to Wepa from home -- or anywhere with an internet connection.
4. You can print from any type of device, not just computers.

How to create a Wepa account

If you’re on campus, simply walk up to the closest Wepa kiosk and swipe your R’Card on the right side of the screen, and set up a 6-digit PIN

You can also set up an account from home. To do so, go to wepanow.com, then click the blue “login” button in the upper right-hand corner.

Next, choose the University of California, Riverside from the drop-down menu labeled “School.”

Once you select UC Riverside, the browser should automatically redirect you to the Central Authentication Service (CAS) screen, where you’ll log in with your UCR NetID and current password.

How to deposit funds into your Wepa account

After you’ve logged into your Wepa account, you should see your account balance right below your name. All UCR students will receive $8 in their Wepa account every quarter. This replaces your quarterly Quota printing allowance.

UCR students will receive discounted pricing for the new Wepa printing service.

Currently registered UCR students, staff, faculty, and visitors will pay (with partial costs offset by the Student Technology Fee):

• $0.08 for B&W, 1 sided
• $0.13 for B&W duplex
• $0.35 for color, 1 sided
• $0.65 for color duplex

If you need to print more pages, click “add more” to deposit additional funds.

You have three choices for how to pay for additional printing: Bear Bucks, credit card or PayPal.

With Wepa, each credit card transaction will have a $0.40 processing fee added. However, if you pay for extra pages at the kiosk with your Bear Bucks, there are no additional fees.

How to upload documents to the Wepa cloud

From inside the member portal at Wepanow.com, click “Document Upload.” 

You can link your cloud storage drives to your Wepa account (Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, Dropbox, or Office 365). Click on the green button at the right of the screen to link your accounts.

You can also upload individual files from a computer, smartphone, or tablet. To upload a file from a computer, first, click the “Choose Your File” button. Follow the prompts to select the file from your drive.

Then, you’ll select print options, including:

• number of copies
• single or double sided
• black & white or color printing
• print all the pages in your document or a specific range of pages
• page orientation (portrait or landscape)

Once you have all of your print options selected, click “Send Print Options.” (Please note: you can’t change your print options at the Wepa kiosks for documents you've uploaded to the Wepa cloud.)

The next screen should say “Review the Results.” Your document has been uploaded to the cloud, and you just need to go to the nearest Wepa print station and enter the 6-digit code you received to release the file. (Please note: the code shown in the tutorial video is an example only.)

How to release your print job at a Wepa kiosk

In order to release your print job, log in at the Wepa kiosk by swiping your R’Card using the card reader on the right side of the screen. First-time users will be asked to create a 6-digit PIN code, to protect your Wepa account.

Once logged in, review your Wepa account balance at the top right of the screen, right below your name. At this time, if you need to add funds, you can do so at the kiosk. (Use the card reader on the left side of the screen to add funds.)

On the left side of the screen, you’ll see the list of files you’ve uploaded to your Wepa cloud. Documents that you’ve uploaded to Wepa will be available to print for up to 6 days.

Tap the box next to the document you want to print, or tap the box at the very top of the list to select all files.

The green button at the bottom of the screen will display the total price for your print jobs. Tap this button to continue.

For your security, be sure to log out of your Wepa account when you’ve finished printing. The green logout button will appear in the lower right corner of the screen. The Wepa print station will automatically log you out after 10 seconds of idle time, after your last print job has completed.

To review:

Print from your laptop or desktop computer

Print from your smartphone

Print from your tablet

If you need support or have any trouble with your Wepa account, please reach out to Bear Help. Bear Help is available by phone Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.: (951) 827-4848. After-hours inquiries, please contact Bear Help by emailing bearhelp@ucr.edu, or you can use the online self-help guide.

More News October 11, 2019

The University of California, Riverside Library will host Open Access Week 2019, as part of the global event called International Open Access Week.

The event series will kick off on Monday, Oct. 21, with workshops held each afternoon, Monday through Thursday in the Orbach Library, Room 122. “Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge" is the 2019 theme.

Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn about the potential benefits of sharing what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make “open access” a new norm in scholarship, research and data planning and preservation.

The Open Access movement is made of up advocates (librarians, researchers, publishers, etc.) who promote the free, immediate, and online publication of research.

This will be the tenth International Open Access Week program hosted by the UCR Library.

The Open Access Week workshops are free and open to the public.

The program includes:

Finding and Using Open Data

Monday, October 21, 2019

2:00pm - 3:30pm

Instructor: Kat Koziar

This workshop will discuss differences between open, shared, and closed data; identify places to find open data; and, steps to take when creating a dataset using open data.

Open Science Framework: A Free Tool for Research Collaboration

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

2:00pm - 3:00pm

Instructor: Brianna Marshall

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a freely available tool to keep data and documentation from your project organized and accessible. OSF can be used for any kind of project, not just in the sciences. In this workshop, you'll learn how this tool can help you enhance the efficiency and visibility of your work.

Introduction to QGIS

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Time: 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Instructor: Janet Reyes

QGIS is a free and open source geographic information system. It allows users to create, edit, visualize, analyze and publish geospatial information on Windows, Mac, Linux, and BSD. This workshop will introduce some of the basic mapping functions available in QGIS.

Open Access without APC's: The Present and the Future

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm

Instructor: Michele Potter

If you are interested in all of the benefits of open access publishing, but are concerned about high Article Processing Charges, this workshop will give tips and insider information on such options as writing APCs into grants, how and when to apply for waivers and using the UC repository, eScholarship, to open up your research. We will also take a peek at the future and the work that is being done to eliminate and/or streamline charges for Open Access throughout the scholarly community.

Publishing Options: Some Important Issues to Know

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Time: 3:30pm - 4:30pm​

Instructor: Swati Bhattacharyya

Publishing in a good journal is an indicator of the scholarly achievement of a researcher and one of the most challenging targets in the scholarly world. Many stakeholders such as funding agencies and University of California, however, have already brought a mandate of opening the scholarship for all. The mandate is often referred to as open access policy. There are several myths surrounding this policy. In this session, we will discuss how such a policy can be respected without compromising the quality of scholarship, what are various publishing options and how you can reach your readers widely and quickly.

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.