More News September 19, 2024

Memorandum of understanding signed for four-year agreement that will empower more UC authors to share their scholarship openly with the world.

The University of California (UC) and Taylor & Francis today announced a memorandum of understanding for a four-year read and publish agreement that will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access (OA) articles in nearly 2,500 Taylor & Francis journals. The new partnership between UC and one of the ten largest publishers of UC research advances a mutual goal to empower more authors to share their scholarship openly with readers around the globe.

Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover the OA fees in full for any UC corresponding author who chooses to publish OA in Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Authors of articles accepted for publication in a hybrid or full OA title will have the opportunity to choose OA at no cost to them.

Taylor & Francis has one of the world’s largest Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) portfolios, with more journals in the Arts & Humanities Citation Index® than any other publisher. The new agreement advances a broader goal within UC to expand support for authors publishing HSS research, areas that generally have had limited funding for OA publishing.

To maximize the number of UC researchers who can benefit from the newly signed agreement, authors of qualifying articles published since January 1, 2024, will be given the opportunity to retrospectively convert their article to open access, with the OA fees fully covered. Authors who have already published OA since January 1 will be offered refunds for OA fees already paid.

In addition to extensive OA publishing support, the agreement also ensures the UC community has continued reading access to nearly 1,300 Taylor & Francis journals.

“With Taylor & Francis’ extensive Humanities and Social Sciences suite of journals, this new agreement offers an exciting opportunity for UC researchers to share their work more openly and widely than ever before,” said Mark Hanna, Associate Professor of History at UC San Diego and chair of the UC faculty Academic Senate’s systemwide committee on library and scholarly communication. “It underscores UC’s commitment to advancing academic research, removing barriers to access, and amplifying the impact of the important work being done across disciplines.”

“The University of California has been a pioneer in advancing OA in the United States, and we have a shared belief in the benefits of opening up the latest research,” said Jeff Voci, Senior Vice President & Commercial Lead – Americas at Taylor & Francis. “I am therefore delighted that many months of work with the UC Libraries team has resulted in a creative solution which fulfills their ambitious objectives. Since 2016, our UC agreements have included help for researchers to choose OA and the new partnership will significantly extend that support, boosting the reach and impact of trusted knowledge.”

Taylor & Francis is a leading publisher of open access journals, books, and research platforms. UC joins over 950 global institutions partnering with Taylor & Francis through open access agreements, including 14 others in the Americas.

For more details about the agreement, please visit the UC Office of Scholarly Communication website. If you need assistance or have any questions, please contact our STEM Collections Librarian Michele Potter at michele.potter@ucr.edu. 

More News April 28, 2017

When UCR alumnus Dr. Mark Glassy heard that the library was putting together an exhibit to honor the 200^th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, he couldn’t wait to get involved.

Our Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, JJ Jacobson and her co-curator, graduate student Miranda Butler had been curating the scholarly exhibit for about six months when Glassy reached out to express interest in collaboration.

“Miranda is a grad student in the English department and the SFCS (Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science) program, and she knows amazing amounts of things about gothic literature,” Jacobson explained. But Glassy brings something very different to the table: a life-long love affair with monster memorabilia and science fiction.

Glassy invited Butler, Jacobson, and Cherry Williams, UCR Library’s Director of Distinctive Collections, to view his extensive personal collection of models, comic books, and other memorabilia. Jacobson nicknamed Glassy’s home “the monster model mansion,” a nod to the title of his former website, The Doctor’s Model Mansion.

Glassy himself sculpted many of the pieces in his collection, and therefore they are one-of-a-kind. “Mark is willing to lend us some of his models for the exhibit and/or an accompanying display,” Jacobson stated enthusiastically.

“It’s such an honor to be with somebody while they show you what their passion is, what they’ve collected over the course of a lifetime,” Williams commented.

Their collaboration has been a meeting of the minds for several people who truly love the genre. “He’s really, really smart about Frankenstein as an enduring icon,” Jacobson said of Glassy. Their conversations sometimes spark new tangents, she added, which inspire an entirely new vein of research for exhibit content.

“He loves that we want to talk to him seriously about science fiction. All of us are taking our geekdom and our love of science fiction and using it to do something amazing in the world,” Jacobson added. “Mark is a big-time cancer hero, and Miranda is an incredibly insightful and promising graduate student. We know here at UCR that a love of science fiction can coexist with a serious intellectual life. Other parts of the world can be a little slower to catch up.”

The “200 Years of Frankenstein” exhibit is scheduled to begin in September 2018, in Special Collections on the fourth floor of Rivera Library.

Cancer researcher by day, and science fiction enthusiast by night. See more of UCR alumnus Dr. Glassy’s collection here: www.glassyscifiarchive.com

More News January 23, 2020

As winter quarter gets underway, we realize that many of you are curious about the status of the UC’s negotiations with Elsevier, which stalled last year. More on that below. We also need to hear from you: http://bit.ly/elsevier-poll

Meanwhile, there has also been progress on several other fronts as UC works to advance open access to UC research in partnership with a diverse range of publishers. 

UC and Elsevier 

After formal negotiations stalled in February 2019, UC and Elsevier have remained in informal conversations and are looking forward to continuing that dialogue. The parties are planning to hold a meeting to explore reopening negotiations within the first quarter of 2020. 

Over the past year, Elsevier has signed other transformative agreements, and we are hopeful that this suggests that the publisher is ready to discuss deals that align with UC’s goals.

• Share your views: In the meantime, members of UC’s academic community are encouraged to participate in a short poll (3 minutes or less) to gauge the impact of the loss of immediate access to current Elsevier content via ScienceDirect.

Wiley and Springer Nature

UC is in cordial negotiations with Wiley and Springer Nature to renew contracts that expired on Dec. 31, 2019. In each case, UC and the publisher have a shared desire to reach a transformative agreement that combines UC’s subscription with open access publishing of UC research. Both publishers have extended UC’s access to their journals, under the terms of their prior contracts, while negotiations are underway. 

New agreements: Association for Computing Machinery and Journal of Medical Internet Research

UC has announced two new publisher agreements, each with a different model to provide financial support for UC researchers who choose to publish their work open access. 

• UC was one of four major research institutions to enter into an open access publishing agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Under the three-year agreement with this society publisher, the UC libraries will pay to retain access to ACM’s journals and other publications, and to ensure that UC researchers’ articles will be made openly available at the time of publication at no cost to the authors.
• As part of a new two-year pilot with JMIR Publications — a native open access publisher of more than 30 digital health-related journals including its flagship Journal of Medical Internet Research — the UC Libraries will pay the first $1,000 of the open access publishing fee for all UC authors who choose to publish in a JMIR journal. Authors who do not have research funds available can request financial assistance from the libraries for the remainder of the costs, ensuring that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish in JMIR journals. 

Each agreement expands UC’s portfolio of options for its authors who wish to make their research open access. As UC’s first such agreements with a native open access and a society publisher, respectively, the two new pilots exemplify the university’s commitment to finding ways to work with publishers of all types and sizes to advance open access to UC research. 

Cambridge University Press: Agreement now fully implemented

After an initial kickoff phase in 2019, UC’s first transformative open access agreement, with Cambridge University Press, is now fully in effect. Starting this month, when UC corresponding authors submit their accepted manuscript for publication with Cambridge, they will be prompted to consider making their article open access. The open access fee will be discounted by 30%, and the UC Libraries’ $1,000 subsidy will be applied automatically. Authors who have research funding available will be asked to use those funds to pay any remaining amount, under a cost-sharing model designed to enable the UC Libraries to stretch their available funds and help as many authors as possible. As with UC’s agreement with JMIR, if an author does not have research funds available to pay the remainder of the open access publishing fee, they can request that the libraries pay their portion, as well. Learn more about the agreement and what it means for you if you publish with Cambridge.

More to Come

Conversations with other publishers are also in the pipeline, and we will keep you apprised when there are major developments or new agreements to share.

If you have questions about any of these open access publishing agreements or negotiations, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Tiffany Moxham, Assistant University Librarian for Content and Discovery.

More News May 01, 2017

Fourth-year Comparative Literature PhD candidate and library student employee Sean Matharoo has a unique array of talents, experiences, and academic interests that should yield results during his Fulbright fellowship in Belgium later this year.

“The funding to pursue something like this is invaluable to me. It enables me to do something I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. I’m really honored and I’m excited,” Matharoo said. “I’ve been given the opportunity to work with Dr. Stef Craps in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University. His research is focused on the same things that I want to study: memory studies, the Anthropocene, postcolonial literature, and climate change fiction.”

Matharoo added, “The Anthropocene has been theorized by scientists as a geological time period characterized by humankind’s adverse impact on the planet due to the exploitation of land, water, animals, and fossil fuels. I want to problematize the cosmopolitanism of the discourse, which tends to sideline the question of vulnerability.”

Matharoo has been passionate about engaging with environmental issues such as climate change since before he came to UCR. He devoted nearly a year to his Eagle Scout project of building a drought-tolerant garden in his hometown of Inverness, Florida.

After completing his Bachelor’s in English at University of Florida, Matharoo was drawn to UC Riverside for three reasons: the university’s science-fiction program, cultural diversity, and geographic location. “I have always wanted to move out west for social and political reasons, and to be near the Joshua Tree desert and the film cultures of LA.”

Matharoo’s advisor Dr. Sherryl Vint recommended that he apply for the Fulbright grant to study in Belgium, knowing that he feels passionate about bridging cultural and linguistic borders while striving toward solidarity across those gaps.

“What’s really important to me is bringing into the classroom an emphasis on communicating across differences while upholding those differences at the same time,” Matharoo stated. “A lot of students – especially students who don’t come from families that are intimately familiar with the education system in this country – children of immigrants, first generation college students, and so on – they don’t always know that they don’t have to assimilate into one way of doing research.”

Sean credits his collaborative approach to research to his time spent working in Special Collections at Rivera Library with JJ Jacobson, UCR Library’s Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction. “Working in the library taught me that starting with a hypothesis, an idea, a problem or a question, and then thinking about it in a much more improvisational and flexible way, it ends up opening interesting new tangents that are actually really productive for engaging the question,” he explained. “It encouraged me to think of research not in terms of solo-authored projects but instead as collaborative projects.”

When working at Rivera Library, Matharoo cataloged the Jay Kay Klein photograph collection. “There are thousands and thousands of photos and slides in this collection,” he stated. “From the 1940s through the 1990s (Klein) was really active in going to science-fiction conventions and award ceremonies, taking photographs and meticulously documenting where he was, who was in the photograph. I worked on his collection, moving the analog negatives and slides over to digital metadata so that scholars, artists, or anybody who is interested could say, ‘I need a photo of Octavia Butler at this convention in this year,’ for instance, and they could easily find it.”

During his Fulbright fellowship, Sean plans to take classes at Ghent University, conduct research, and write the first few chapters of his PhD dissertation. “There are other PhD students at Ghent working on projects similar to my own. There’s a really incredible, thriving community there that I’ll be able to network with and learn from.”

He hopes to connect his Fulbright research with the Afro-Belgian community in Ghent through interviews and collaborative artistic projects. “I intend to superimpose interviews, field recordings, noise music, text, photography, and video into audiovisual sculptures,” he explained.

After completing his PhD, Matharoo plans to teach at a university. “I don’t want to treat my students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge,” he said, “but, rather, to create a space where we can do the work of education together, always experimenting to create alternative ways of thinking and being.”

More News November 16, 2016

Last week, we saw an election unlike anything that any of us alive today could have imagined even a few years ago.

Some have used the rhetoric that emerged during the campaign and afterward as a legitimization for disrespectful speech and violent action towards those that they do not understand and therefore fear. As one colleague put it, we are a nation experiencing a case of road rage, where rage has replaced reasoned, open, and honest discourse.

The UCR Library affirms the campus’ commitment to diversity and inclusion and its role in ensuring that that commitment is fulfilled. We also stand for reasoned, thoughtful, and respectful discourse and the free exchange of high-quality information. We value the multiplicity of viewpoints, insights, and lived experiences that make the academic, professional, and personal experience at UCR so rich for our students, faculty, and staff.

The role of the Library has been and always will be to connect people, ideas, and information. This is a time for us to come together to shine the light of reason and fair play on  “information” being shared via social media and other communications platforms that has not faced the test of journalistic or academic integrity and that has not been edited, fact checked, vetted, or otherwise challenged effectively for factual inaccuracies.

The Library can and will play a critical role in preserving and extending our democratic ideals where people of all backgrounds, identities, socioeconomic levels, and places of origin have an equal footing and an equal voice in the democratic processes that have set this country apart from so many others for so long. Libraries in this country have stood from their beginnings as places where democratic ideals are protected, shared, and nurtured. This is not the time for us to stop doing so.

We have an opportunity to be part of the solution to pull this country back from despair, lawlessness, and discord. That doesn’t mean that we have to always agree, far from it. But it does mean that we have to use our skills and abilities to stand for our ideals.

Everyone in the UCR Library community is welcome as a valued member, regardless of race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, visible and non-visible disability, or any other characteristic. Please join me in affirming that it is our duty to continue to work together to ensure the safety and well-being -- physically, emotionally, and academically -- of all of the students, faculty, staff, and community members who work, study, or use the UCR Library.

Sincerely,

Steven Mandeville-Gamble, University Librarian

More News April 17, 2020

Since mid-March 2020, the world has changed in ways that none of us could have predicted. I wanted to share with you some things the UCR Library is doing to help UCR not only survive the COVID-19 closure, but to thrive.

Late afternoon on Friday, March 13, we got the County of Riverside Public Health Officer’s order to shut down the campus by Monday, March 16. We had only two days to switch to working, conducting all exams, and teaching remotely.

We adapted work so that all staff could work virtually from home within a few days. Many library staff immediately engaged with faculty and XCITE (Exploration Center for Innovative Teaching and Engagement) to help convert Spring Quarter 2020 from in-person classes to remote instruction with one week. Normally, it takes six months or more to convert a single class to a remote modality. UCR converted more than 3,000 courses in just two weeks' time.

As part of this effort, a number of library staff members are close captioning course materials in video format, to ensure that all students have equitable access to the online course content, regardless of differing abilities in vision or hearing.

Our Teaching and Learning librarians have been helping faculty convert their courses to remote teaching, and actively converting the library's own information literacy sessions to online formats, which means we can continue to support faculty in their teaching mission nearly as seamlessly as we did with in-person courses. That apparent seamlessness hides the enormous amount of work being done behind the scenes by dedicated librarians and staff to make this happen.

Since staff can no longer routinely access the library’s buildings, you might wonder how we can provide access to our books without going into the stacks. For more than a decade, the UC Libraries have been working on a system-wide project to digitize our vast print holdings. The digital copies created by this long-term project are held by the HathiTrust, which has agreed to open up the copyrighted materials to UCR faculty, students, and staff for any print titles we currently own. This access went into effect on April 10, providing our stakeholders access to more than 50% of our book titles. Then on April 13, HathiTrust opened up all books in the trust that correspond to print titles owned by any UC to all UC affiliates . As a result, UCR faculty, students, and staff now have access to more than 10 million books online. For more information, read this article.

That is in addition to the extensive collection of online books that we have acquired over the years.

Additionally, for any titles not currently in the HathiTrust, we are purchasing electronic copies books of any titles that UCR students or faculty need, so long as an e-book version is available.

This means that, for most people who use our collections, access to our content is continuing relatively seamlessly, even though online access requires a few extra steps for end-users.

Finally, our Creat’R Lab staff are using our 3D printers to make a key part needed to build face shields for the dedicated Inland Empire doctors, nurses, and other health care providers treating COVID-19 patients. These pieces will be delivered to the Riverside Community Hospital, who will assemble the face shields for their staff. It the UCR Library’s small, direct contribution to support the medical personnel treating people affected by the virus.

If you have any questions about what the UCR Library and its dedicated staff are doing to help keep the university moving forward, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Best,

Steve​n Mandeville-Gamble

University Library, UC Riverside

More News January 20, 2017

On January 4, 2017, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) announced that the UCR Library and the Sherman Indian Museum would receive a $376,191 Digitizing Hidden Collections grant, generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for a collaborative project to digitize the museum’s collection.

“Their collection houses thousands of one-of-a-kind documents about the history, education, and culture of The Sherman Institute from 1901 to 1970, and Sherman Indian High School from 1970 to the present day,” explained Dr. Clifford E. Trafzer, UC Riverside’s Distinguished Professor of History and Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs. “The collections also have all the records of Perris Indian School from 1892 to 1904, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs transferred students to The Sherman Institute, the first off-reservation American Indian boarding school in southern California. These are valuable treasures that cannot be replaced. Documents and photographs represent many aspects of student life at Sherman and focus on the people, curriculum, sports, music, dance, and vocational education.”

“These records hold the history for so many people: Native American people who came to school here, people who have worked here, and their families,” said Lorene Sisquoc, Director of the Sherman Indian Museum. “We get many different research requests, not just from alumni. It’s been quite in-demand for the past 25 years, and the demand has gotten bigger and bigger to access these archives that are well over 100 years old. It was crucial that we got this done somehow.”

The Sherman Indian Museum collection is an invaluable resource documenting the Native American experience in the United States. The collection supports research in a range of disciplines and on a variety of topics including Native American education, the US government’s cultural assimilation efforts of Native Americans, and the history of American Indian off-reservation boarding schools.

“There are only a handful of American Indian boarding school collections out there, and the only other one that has been digitized is in Pennsylvania,” explained Eric Milenkiewicz, Manuscripts Curator and co-principal investigator on the grant. “So this project will provide the public with a glimpse into the boarding school experience from a California, west coast perspective.” Given the granting agency’s guidelines, the Sherman Indian Museum could not apply for the grant on their own; they also didn’t have the resources needed to digitize their collection. That was all the incentive that UCR Library needed to complete the grant application last April.

“Serving this type of community need is exactly why the Inland Empire Memories initiative exists,” Eric explained. Founded in 2013, the mission of Inland Empire Memories is to identify, preserve, interpret, and share the rich cultural legacies of the Inland Empire’s diverse communities. “It’s really about safeguarding these materials, this community treasure for future generations. This is part of Riverside’s history, which UCR is also a part of, and we want to make sure that the collection is preserved and accessible to the community.” The digital collection will be made available through Calisphere, thanks to CLIR and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, allowing worldwide online access to this rich resource.

As part of this grant, UCR Library will help build infrastructure for future digitization efforts at the Sherman Indian Museum. The grant will also procure scanning equipment for the Museum, and students from the Sherman Indian High School will receive training so that they can participate in digitization.  “This is something that’s been needed for a long time,” said Lorene, “and we’re very fortunate to get this.”

“One of our project’s primary goals is to embed these technical skills in the community that will be carrying this digitization work forward,” Eric explained. “We believe that the skills learned by the students over the course of this project will positively impact the museum and community, promoting a greater understanding of digital initiatives work. And we hope that this grant project will inspire further community support from other interested organizations or individuals who will want to step in, to carry this torch into the future,” Eric added.

Benefits of digitizing the Sherman Museum’s collection are many, but three come to the forefront. As Lorene explains, “It’s going to benefit people all over to be able to access these, and also to protect them so we won’t be using originals as research access.” According to Dr. Trafzer, “Scholars will produce many books and articles from the rich documents found in the collections,” he explained. “Equally important, former Native American students of Sherman and their families will have easy access to documents and photographs, school newspapers and annuals. Native American people and families will be able to learn more about the lives of their loved ones. This will provide contemporary American Indians and scholars with images and voices of past generations of students, faculty, and staff at Sherman.”

“It’s not just great news for UCR’s own graduate students,” Associate University Librarian for Collections & Scholarly Communication, Alison Scott concurred. “This will be great for the world.”

More News January 29, 2018

Special Collections & University Archives staff are constantly working to process recently acquired collections and make those materials ready for use by students, faculty, and researchers.

Each quarter, we will provide a list of UCR Library's newly processed archival and primary source collections. Check out the list below to see if there are any items that fit your research area, or share with a friend!

Below you'll find brief descriptions and links to the finding aids or collection guides for each new collection. To use any of these materials, simply click the "Request Items" button at the top to submit a request, and log in with our Special Collections Request System. For more on conducting research in Special Collections, see this page.

SCUA is open to the public on weekdays from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Check here for closures or other changes to our regular hours.

For questions, email specialcollections@ucr.edu.

Newly Processed Collections – Winter 2018

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 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.