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Adaptability and Resilience: A letter from the University Librarian
Fifty-five hours.
Fifty-five hours was the time that the UCR Library had to convert its operations to a completely-remote mode—from when the Riverside County Public Health Officer’s order to close all county campuses due to the COVID-19 crisis was received at close of business on Friday, March 13, 2020, to the moment it went into effect at midnight on Sunday, March 15, 2020.
You would be proud of the extraordinary efforts that the UCR Library staff took to make that transition and the efforts that they went to support teaching, learning, and research in this new reality. I know that I am.
Some of the highlights of those extraordinary efforts include:
1) With less than two weeks’ notice, the library’s Teaching & Learning and Research Services units stepped up to help XCITE, the campus’s teaching and learning operation, convert thousands of in-person classes to remote teaching mode, working with many faculty who had never before taught remotely;
2) Numerous additional staff throughout the library worked for XCITE to caption faculty and other instructional videos, and also served as XCITE exam proctors for spring midterms and finals;
3) Research Services staff continued to help faculty and students in their research efforts, and also 3-D printed key parts needed for protective face shields for local hospitals;
4) Access Services staff began digitizing increased numbers course reserves and making the content available online; others implemented the first curbside delivery of books and other physical materials implemented in the UC system;
(4) Staff in Special Collections continued to answer reference questions and provide digital copies of items needed by our researchers around the world;
(5) Our Preservation department staff began using the library’s digitization equipment to scan title pages from incoming physical books and sending them to the catalogers working from home to continue describing the research collections that the library is continuing to acquire;
(6) The library’s Multimedia Services operation continued to reformat motion picture and other media content for our faculty to be able to use in their courses.
These are just a few of the inventive and heroic steps taken by staff from across the library to ensure that we can continue to provide the information sources our researchers need to be fully productive in their research, teaching, and learning initiatives. There are many others in the library who equally deserve praise for their ingenuity, resilience, and creativity in rethinking how to continue providing excellent service while working from home.
The UCR Library staff have proven once again how dedicated and resourceful they are. If the old adage that one should never let a good disaster go to waste, then I can confidently say that my colleagues have not only risen to the occasion, but are rethinking how we can re-engineer how we can provide robust services to the academic community of UCR whether on campus or studying from the other side of the planet. This is a story not of tragedy but of triumph.
May you and your loved ones be safe and healthy. And remember: whether we are working on campus or from our homes, we are here to ensure the success of the faculty, researchers, graduate, and undergraduate students of the University of California, Riverside.
All best,
Steve
From Student Employee to Career Staff: Carla Arbagey
From student staff member to president of the UC librarians’ association, from reserves coordinator to collection strategist for STEM, Carla Arbagey has run the gamut of roles that a library staff member might hold during a career – and she’s just getting started.
In March 2002, Arbagey began working at the UCR Library as a student assistant in the Orbach Science Library’s Reserves department and transitioned to part-time career staff eight months later.
Arbagey was grateful that her supervisor at the time, Circulation / Reserves Services Manager Sahra Missaghieh-Klawitter, was willing to schedule work hours around her class schedule. She graduated with UC Riverside’s class of 2004 with her B.A. and then completed her Master of Arts degree in 2006, both in art history.
After graduation, she remained with UCR Library. She saw a connection between libraries and art history that most people might not notice.
“Most large museums like the Getty and LACMA also have large research libraries where people come to do research,” she explained. “So being involved and interested in culture, cultural history and the preservation of knowledge fits in well with libraries.”
Opportunities for continued career growth kept Arbagey at UCR, and eventually she decided to pursue her Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree from San Jose State University. She is now UCR Library’s Collection Strategist for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
As a UC librarian, she is a member of the Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC) and has served as Chair of LAUC Riverside (LAUC-R), as well as chair of local and system-wide Diversity Committees.
In September 2017, Arbagey was elected as the statewide President of LAUC for a one-year term that will conclude in September 2018.
“I think it’s helped me to develop a lot of my professional skills in terms of planning, leadership and developing a vision, and seeing the bigger picture,” Arbagey said of her LAUC service. “We’re all interconnected, like one big library for UC.”
As LAUC President, Arbagey has appreciated many opportunities for advocacy. She has spoken on behalf of librarians at the fourth hearing of the State Assembly Select Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education, which was held at UC Riverside, at the UC Regents’ May 2018 meeting, and she presided at the LAUC Annual Assembly on March 23, 2018 honoring the 150th anniversary of the UC Charter.
In her role at UCR Library, Arbagey enjoys how much her work employs technology to expand knowledge and improve skills. “Here there’s really a conscious effort to keep up with that,” she said. “It’s great to have the tools to support learning.”
One of Arbagey’s favorite memories is connected with one of her biggest dreams for the library: having more textbooks available and research materials available, including open educational resources.
She recalled a week in May 2011 when Chancellor Emeritus Tim White worked as a circulation desk assistant at Orbach Library for Undercover Boss. “They fooled us so bad! I had no idea what was going on,” she laughed.
During the library’s segment of the show, White assisted students who were requesting textbooks on reserve. “The library copy was in a bad condition because those books can check out up to 500 times in a ten-week period,” Arbagey explained. “Then another student came up who couldn’t get the book because it was already checked out. I was in charge of reserves back then and I was in tears watching that segment.”
White allocated some additional funding to the library for course reserves after that segment, but the challenge persists, according to Arbagey.
“It’s still a problem to provide access for our unique student body, many of whom are unable to purchase all the textbooks needed for their classes,” she said. “One of the principles for librarianship is equitable access to information. It’s a way as librarians we can make things more equitable.”
Arbagey is excited by the Affordable Course Materials Initiative, a program coordinated by Director of Teaching and Learning Dani Brecher Cook as well as faculty and Information Technology Solutions (ITS) partners, to promote the number of available high-quality course-related open educational resources on campus.
Class of '68 alumna pledges $489,000 gift to UCR Library
UC Riverside class of 1968 alumna Ann Kelsey recently pledged a $489,000 planned gift to the UCR Library to fund an endowment that supports initiatives in technology advancement.
Born on June 20, 1946 in Kokomo, Indiana, Ann Kelsey’s father served in the Navy, having enlisted after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. At age five, her father’s career brought the family to a Southern California facility.
Very early in life, Kelsey knew that she wanted to become a librarian. She spent much of her adolescent years reading and working in libraries; starting at sixteen, she worked for the Riverside city-county library.
Both of Kelsey’s parents encouraged her to attend college because neither of them nor most of her extended family members had gone to university. By her senior year of high school, she knew that UC Riverside was the natural choice.
At UCR, Kelsey double majored in English and Anthropology; from her anthropology classes, she developed an interest in Asian cultures and Southeast Asia.
After graduating from UCR, Kelsey attended library school at UCLA, where she met Army Special Services recruiters. Kelsey served as a librarian during the Vietnam War, traveling to Vietnam to establish and oversee recreational libraries for soldiers.
Kelsey’s career as a librarian placed her at the helm of introducing new technologies within library spaces to better support the changing needs of the communities they serve.
Her $489,000 planned gift to the UCR Library will provide unrestricted support, allowing the library to strengthen and sustain its programs and services in emerging technology, which directly aligns with Kelsey’s own life and career.
University Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble said, “The UCR Library is honored by the generosity and confidence shown by Ann Kelsey in her establishment of this bequest. Ms. Kelsey’s career has spanned the advent of library automation to the evolution of digital scholarship and emerging digital literacies. This gift will allow the UCR Library to continue to evolve to meet the increasingly sophisticated technology needs of our faculty and students for many decades to come.”
Teaming up to tackle DEI issues
The topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are critical to our campus at UC Riverside.
On April 10, 2018, the UCR Library’s Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (CODEI) held a kickoff event to encourage library staff to start thinking about DEI issues in their everyday work, led by guest expert Mark Puente, Director of Diversity & Leadership Programs for the Association of Research Libraries.
A follow-up event held on June 4, 2019 sought to highlight examples of library employees who have turned their ideals into practice. This event was co-sponsored by CODEI, the Librarians Association of the University of California, Riverside (LAUC-R), and the library’s Professional Development Committee (PDC).
The event included six lightning talks from library staff members who noted challenges and described how they incorporated inclusive practices into their work, including:
- Diversifying digital collections with Digitization Services Program Manager Eric Milenkiewicz
- Bringing library collections into the community with University Programs Teaching Librarian Judy Lee
- Involving communities in describing collections with Collections Management Librarian Jessica Geiser, Digital Assets Metadata Librarian Noah Geraci, and Primary Source Literacy Teaching Librarian Robin Katz
- Mental health-related study breaks with Access Services Desk Coordinator Elisha Hankins and Circulation/Reserves Services Manager Sahra Klawitter
- Increasing access via streaming media with Reserves Streaming Coordinator Philip Chiu
- Professional organizations related to diversity with Collection Strategist for Arts & Humanities Carla Arbagey
CODEI Co-Chair and Director of Teaching & Learning Dani Cook commented, “The lightning talks were a great example of how issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are present in every aspect of library work, from creating useful descriptions of collections to providing support for students during stressful times of the quarter. The more we can discuss these issues together and reflect on how they affect our work, the better we can serve our users and support our colleagues.”
Additionally, event attendees participated in a rapid prototyping, design-thinking exercise where small groups brainstormed and developed ideas related to real-life DEI challenges in the library environment.
“It was so exciting to see people from all parts of the Library come together to brainstorm solutions to challenges related to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Cook said. “Everyone seemed deeply engaged, and there were many creative ideas produced, ranging from the very feasible (like checking out noise-cancelling headphones for users with sensory sensitivities) to the more aspirational (a robot that retrieves items for patrons).”
CODEI plans to host more follow-up events to turn ideas into actionable proposals, and continue to engage in these issues across departmental boundaries, Cook noted.
“I don’t imagine that there will ever be a time when CODEI’s work is finished—there will always be more that we can learn and apply around diversity, equity, and inclusion. But continuing to have space to educate ourselves and support one another in considering DEI throughout our day is critical, and one major role of CODEI is to facilitate those spaces,” Cook added. “We also hope that there will be some concrete outcomes from the ideas generated at the event, and that we continue to include more voices in future events.”
Roper iPoll: Our New Resource for Public Opinion Data
The UCR Library is excited to announce our new access to Roper iPoll, a comprehensive database containing public opinion polling data and survey research.
This invaluable resource includes national, state, and foreign surveys on a wide variety of social, political, and cultural topics. Users can explore questions, trends, demographics, and datasets, providing a wealth of information for research and analysis.
Roper iPoll is built on the extensive archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion and Research. With Roper iPoll, search over 880,000 questions and 25,000 datasets!
We invite the UCR community to explore Roper iPoll and take advantage of this powerful research tool. Make sure to visit the website while logged into the campus VPN or using the campus Wi-Fi.
New campus VPN goes live March 2
Today, UCR Information Technology Solutions (ITS) introduced a new Virtual Private Network (VPN) for campus use.
This new network (Palo Alto GlobalProtect) is scheduled to replace the existing campus VPN solution (Cisco AnyConnect) effective May 1, 2020. Updated information: the campus Cisco AnyConnect VPN is decommissioned as of July 1, 2020.
Why is UCR introducing a new campus VPN?
Palo Alto’s GlobalProtect VPN offers greater security features than Cisco’s AnyConnect, including better integration with our internet firewall. It also supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) and enforces our security policy.
When will the new VPN be available?
The new GlobalProtect VPN will be available to use starting on March 2, 2020. There will be a window of time open for users to make the transition to GlobalProtect before AnyConnect is disabled. However, Campus VPN users are highly encouraged to begin using the new GlobalProtect VPN soon after it becomes available and report any issues they encounter.
When will the current VPN be decommissioned?
Update: ITS has extended the decommission deadline for the AnyConnect VPN. To better support remote teaching and working, the AnyConnect VPN will now be decommissioned on July 1, 2020. This overlap is meant to allow users ample time to transition to using the new VPN successfully.
If VPN users experience any access or connection issues while using the GlobalProtect VPN, please have them reach out to UCR BearHelp by calling 909-537-4848 (IT4U) or email at BearHelp@ucr.edu.
Library Administration Welcomes New Administrative Assistant
UCR Library is pleased to welcome Rochelle Settle as the Administrative Assistant in Library Administration, effective April 3, 2017.
Rochelle's work station is at the front desk in suite 141 of Rivera Library. She will manage supply orders through the Library’s supply database, as well as scheduling, cash/check deposits, and other library projects and administrative duties.
Rochelle has over nine years of experience working in an educational environment. Most recently, she worked with the Raytown C-2 School District in Kansas City, Missouri.
Rochelle earned her Master of Arts in Theological Studies at the Central Theological Seminary, Shawnee, Kansas. She also has a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies from Calvary University, Kansas City, Missouri.
Diversity, Inclusion, and the UCR Library
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.
Undergraduate student achieves rare publication in respected library news magazine
Donovan Frazier, a curriculum development student assistant in UCR Library’s Teaching and Learning Department, has attained a noteworthy achievement as an undergraduate student by having an article published in the highly regarded academic news magazine College & Research Libraries News (C&RL News).
Donovan’s article, "Shifting from reactive to proactive: An accessibility review and revision project", is featured in the January 2023 edition of the news magazine and explores the way in which the UCR Library’s digital learning objects (DLOs) were reviewed for accessibility. C&RL News is read by many in the academic and research library field and Donovan hopes the article is helpful to anyone interested in “accessing their own DLOs and iterating on the process our library designed.”
In the context of the article, DLOs are tutorials created by the UCR Library.
“The library makes tutorials for all types of classes across multiple disciplines,” explains Donovan. “It was very eye-opening to realize how far the library reaches, even if you don't physically walk into the library.”
Under the direction of Arts and Humanities Teaching Librarian Robin Katz and Social Sciences Teaching Librarian Michael Yonezawa, Donovan reviewed existing DLOs for accessibility using 16 accessibility standards and created a color-coded system using a spreadsheet to identify and prioritize accessibility issues.
An example of a high-priority accessibility issue Donovan discovered was a DLO that had no alt text for images. In Donovan’s spreadsheet, this was labeled red to signify a significant change was needed to meet the relevant accessibility standards.
Robin, Michael, and Donovan gave a presentation on their accessibility project for the Digital Pedagogy Institute and it was through this process that the idea of an article for C&RL News was brought up.
Donovan began working on the article in summer 2022 and was pleasantly surprised that the initial feedback he received from C&RL News was to add more detail.
The article has received praise from the Teaching and Learning Department, with staff members also acknowledging the achievement.
“C&RL News is one of the widest-read publications in academic librarianship, and it is rare to see articles from students, especially undergraduates,” says Director of Teaching and Learning Britt Foster. “Just completing the project was a significant and impactful achievement, so it's exciting to see Donovan's work published and disseminated so broadly.”
Donovan completed his studies in December 2022 with a double major in Creative Writing and History and will attend UCR’s commencement ceremony in June 2023. He hopes to find a job in the education field that focuses on e-learning or web design for an educational institute.
“Working in Teaching and Learning definitely sparked my interest in education. I can take the skills I’ve learned from here and directly apply them to those types of jobs.”
Intersession Hours and Winter Break Closure
The UCR Library facilities will adopt an intersession schedule starting on Saturday, December 16, 2017.
During intersession (from December 16 to December 22), library hours will be as follows:
Tomás Rivera Library and Orbach Science Library
- Monday - Friday: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
- Saturday: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
- Sunday: closed
Special Collections & University Archives
- Monday - Friday: by appointment only
- Saturday & Sunday: closed
Music Library
- Monday - Friday: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
- Saturday & Sunday: closed
In addition, UC Riverside plans to observe a Winter Holiday Closure during the 2017-2018 holiday season. This annual closure has allowed UCR to achieve significant energy savings and continues to be a highly effective approach to power conservation for a specific period of time.
The library will close for winter break from Saturday, December 23, 2017 until Monday, January 1, 2018.
UCR Library will reopen on Tuesday, January 2, 2018. Special Collections & University Archives will remain appointment-only until Monday, January 8, 2018.
For the most up-to-date information, please refer to the Hours page.