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UCR Library to Host GIS Day 2017

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The University of California, Riverside Library and campus partners will host several events in celebration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day and Geography Awareness Week.

This year, GIS Day will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 15, and Geography Awareness Week is from Nov. 12-18.

GIS Day, first established in 1999, provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

“Technological advances and increased exposure to map products in everyday life have boosted awareness of GIS,” said Janet Reyes, the UCR Library geospatial information librarian who is coordinating GIS Day at UCR. “Both official and crowd-sourced maps of damage in the aftermath of recent natural disasters are just one example of the power these tools can have in improving and understanding our world.”

The diversity of academic departments at UCR that use spatial data is expanding, Reyes explained. “And the use of GIS in the humanities is an exciting recent development. Faculty are discovering that the ability of GIS to display, analyze, and manipulate geographic data makes it a valuable tool for instruction as well as research.”

“The Center for Conservation Biology uses GIS to bring together many types of information that support study in the relationships between organisms and the conditions in which they live,” stated Associate Specialist Robert Johnson. “GIS is one research tool we use to measure and visualize contemporary distributions of species locations and habitat characteristics, how both have changed in the past, and how these may look in the future. Our spatial-based research efforts have advised land management practice at local and regional levels.”

“Application of Geographic Information Systems in Environmental Sciences has increased in recent years due to availability of geospatial data including a variety of remotely sensed products developed by federal and state agencies, and the research community around the world,” commented Hoori Ajami, Assistant Professor of Groundwater Hydrology at UC Riverside. “GIS Day activities at UCR will promote the use of these technologies in research and teaching, and enhance collaboration between the geospatial community at UCR and Southern California.”

GIS Day 2017 at UCR will feature talks by researchers and community members who will share how they use GIS to advance their work, including a presentation by the Center for Spatial Studies founding director Sergio Rey at 11:20 am on Nov. 15 in Orbach Science Library, Room 240.

Other activities include a drone demonstration (conditions permitting), a reception, and a poster display in both Orbach Science Library and Tomás Rivera Library from Nov. 13 through Nov. 17.

A poster contest for students is another new feature of GIS Day this year. (Details on how to enter the poster contest are provided here. Abstracts are due by Nov. 1.)  Contest posters will be exhibited in the atrium of Orbach Science Library throughout the week, and the winners announced on the afternoon of Nov. 15.

While the poster contest is open only to students, the entire UC Riverside community is welcome to provide a poster for the separate displays in Orbach and Rivera. Posters that have been used or will be used at other events are acceptable. The deadline to sign up to display a poster is Friday, Oct. 20. To submit a poster to the display, contact Janet Reyes (janet.reyes@ucr.edu) or Margarita Yonezawa (margarita.yonezawa@ucr.edu) at the Orbach Science Library’s Map Collection, or call (951) 827-6423.

UCR Library hopes that the 2017 event will showcase a variety of disciplines using GIS, make students aware of the possibilities for using GIS in both academic and community settings, and provide students opportunities for learning and networking.

Other events planned for Geography Awareness Week include map-related activities in the Creat’R Lab and a presentation by Manuel Urrizola on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 1:00 pm in Rivera Library Room 403. Manuel’s talk, Is California an Island?, is sponsored by Special Collections and features antique maps depicting California as being separate from the North American mainland.

Cosponsoring the GIS Day events are the Center for Conservation Biology; the Departments of Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Psychology; Capital Asset Strategies; and UCR Extension.

More details about the GIS Day event schedule will be posted soon on the UCR Library website.

New catalog and search interface is live

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The new catalog and search interface for UCR Library is now live as of Saturday, July 21, 2018!

Full functionality should now be available.

Please note: There will be two-week stabilization period during which links to catalog records that are on library webpages may be redirected to the new catalog search page. Please perform a search on the catalog search page to locate the material. We are currently revising these links.

This is an important milestone for the Library, as we are moving to a “next-generation” system that allows the flexibility and configuration that today’s sophisticated faculty and student searchers need.

We have tried our best to anticipate all possible issues with the new system. However, if you run across anything that has slipped our notice, please email us at library@ucr.edu or use the comment form on the library website.

This new library catalog offers more intuitive ways to discover new content, including:

  • Combined access to both print materials and online licensed e-resources
  • Easy-to-tailor search results using content filters in the left sidebar
  • Book and journal cover image previews
  • Table of contents previews

We truly appreciate your patience and understanding leading up to this milestone!

Support the Library, Transform the World

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Supporting the UCR Library just became a lot easier.

Recently, the library published an updated giving site, Support the Library, Transform the World, in collaboration with University Advancement.

The revised design prominently features the library's top six donation categories, and the development funds that tie directly to them:

“The UCR Library has a number of giving opportunities, and has had for a number of years. Our old giving site made it difficult for potential supporters of the library, our faculty, and our students to find the opportunities that those supporters were seeking,” explained University Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble.

“Our new site helps bring those giving opportunities to life in a way that is easy-to-navigate, compelling, and tells the story of how the UCR Library is supporting the teaching and research mission of the university … and how our supporters can enable us to succeed in that mission.”

Explore the library's new giving site and learn how every gift can make a difference.

Expanded Library Hours During Finals Week

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Orbach Library and Rivera Library will have expanded schedules during fall quarter finals week.

Library Hours:

Orbach Library will be open for 24-hours beginning at 7:30 AM on Wednesday, November 30 and ending at midnight on Thursday, December 8.

Rivera Library will remain open until 2:00 AM each day from Friday, December 2 through Wednesday, December 7.

Rivera will also open one hour early on Saturday, December 3, at 8:00 AM. Rivera will open at regular times on all other dates during finals week.

Service Desk Hours:

Circulation / Reserve Service Desks will close at midnight, except December 2 and 3 when they close at 10:00 PM. Service desks will open when each library facility opens.  

Please refer to the Hours page on the library website for specific details for any particular date.

Intersession hours at all library facilities will begin on Saturday, December 10.

Library recruits new student employees at Career Center event

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February 2, 2018 marked the first time that the UCR Library was invited to participate in the “Find a Job on Campus Fair” presented by UC Riverside’s on-campus Career Center.

As the second-largest student employer on campus, library representatives were thrilled about the opportunity to meet with students who might be interested in joining the UCR Library team.

During the event, Access Services Desk Coordinators Leslie Settle and Elisha Hankins along with Collection Development Assistant Pam Sun distributed hiring material and held on-the-spot interviews.

“The Find a Job on Campus Fair was an excellent opportunity to share the UCR Library brand, mission, and various student employment opportunities with the campus,” said Settle.

Hankins added, “Prior to the event starting, there were lines of students wanting a chance to network with campus employers and the library collected hundreds of resumes. I quickly realized that the UCR Library was a desired place to work for UCR students.”

More than 380 students attended the Find a Job on Campus Fair, and the library’s table had a steady flow of traffic throughout the event, according to Wendy Williams-Clark, Interim Director of Organizational Design and Human Resources for UCR Library. Both Settle and Hankins found and hired several new student workers for their departments by participating in the Find a Job on Campus Fair.

Settle added, “This is definitely an event I look forward to again.”

Library to host GIS Day 2019 at UCR

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The University of California, Riverside Library and campus partners will host several events in celebration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day.

This year, UCR will observe GIS Day on Thursday, Nov. 14, with other related events leading up to it.

GIS Day, first established in 1999, provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

The 2019 event will showcase the variety of disciplines using GIS, illustrate how GIS is used in both academic and community settings, and provide students opportunities for learning and networking.

This is the third year a poster contest for students is being held. Contest posters will be exhibited in the Orbach Library atrium from November 12 – 22, with the winners being announced on the afternoon of Nov. 14 at the poster display.

GIS Day 2019 at UCR will feature talks by researchers and community members who will share how they use GIS to advance their work. The talks will be held from 12:30 – 2:30 pm in Orbach Science Library, Room 240.

Pre-GIS Day events

October 23: Introduction to QGIS workshop, 2:00 pm, Orbach Library Room 122

October 31: deadline for students to enter the GIS Day poster contest

November 6: Introduction to GIS workshop, 2:00 pm, Orbach Library Room 122

November 7: Campus Safety Walk – Housing Edition, 5:30 pm, meet in Parking Lot 15

November 12-13: Visit our table on the quad from 11:00 am-1:00 pm to learn more about GIS @ UCR and enter our prize giveaway!

November 12: Poster contest display begins, Orbach Library atrium

GIS Day event schedule: November 14

11:00 -12:00 – Geography-related activities in the Creat’R Lab, Orbach Library

12:00 – 12:30 – Lunch and mingle, Orbach Library, Room 240

Speaker Schedule:

12:30: Elia Scudiero, Assistant Research Agronomist

  • GIS for Precision Agriculture

12:50: Ahmed Eldawy, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

  • UCR STAR: The UCR Spatio-temporal Active Repository

1:10: Sunny Shao, Researcher, Center for Social Innovation

  • The Use of GIS in IE Census 2020 Planning

1:30: David Yu, Data Scientist, GeoAI, Esri

  • Exploring the Intersection of AI and GIS

1:50: Paea LePendu, Professor of Teaching, Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering, and Ulyana Tkachenko, UCR undergraduate student in Computer Science

  • Homelessness in Riverside: Analyzing the Point-in-Time Counts 

2:10: Elizabeth Perez, Campus Space/GIS Coordinator, and Alan Siero, Data & Process Analyst; both from Facilities Services

  • Campus Safety Walk: Collector App in Action for Public Safety

***

2:30 – 3:30: Meet the poster contestants, Orbach Library Atrium

3:30 – 3:45: Giveaway Prize Drawing

3:45: Announcement of poster contest winners

***

Cosponsoring the GIS Day events are UCR Facilities Services and the Departments of Anthropology, Entomology, History, and Environmental Sciences. Additionally, logistical support is being provided by the Center for Conservation Biology and the R’Geospatial student organization.

UC Riverside hosts inaugural UC DLFx Conference

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On Feb. 27 - 28, 2018, the UC Riverside Library hosted more than 140 guests from all ten UC campuses and the California Digital Library (CDL) at the inaugural University of California Digital Library Forum (UC DLFx).

This was one of the first DLFx events – small, regional community-building events for Digital Library Federation (DLF) members – and the first of its kind held in California.

Local Arrangements Committee Chair Eric Milenkiewicz explained, “UC DLFx brought staff together from across the UC Libraries providing a great opportunity for us to share ideas, discuss ongoing projects, and connect with fellow UC colleagues working in this space.” Conference attendees included UC librarians, digital technology experts, educators, policy-makers, and other thought leaders from across the state.

The 2018 conference theme, Building the UC Digital Library: Theory and Practice, was explored through keynote addresses, presentation sessions, and break-out discussion groups that focused on topics including: data curation, digital asset management, digital collection building, copyright in the digital library, project collaboration, community engagement, and emerging technologies.

The conference featured two keynote presentations from Dr. Don Norman, Director of the Design Lab at UCSD, and Dr. Christine L. Borgman, Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at UCLA.

California State Librarian Greg Lucas and Günter Waibel, Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director of the California Digital Library, provided closing remarks at the end of the event.

“I walked away from UC DLFx feeling inspired by the passion and creativity of everybody I spoke with and heard present,” said Waibel. “For the UC libraries to thrive in financially difficult times, we must continue to build on our long history of working together. There is nothing like getting together face-to-face to stay in sync, and come up with new ideas.”

Steve Mandeville-Gamble, Greg Lucas and Günter Waibel

“All of the feedback received from attendees afterward has been positive with an overwhelming response of ‘let’s do this again,’” said Diane Bisom, Associate University Librarian for the Digital Library. “We have set the gold standard for this event that will hopefully be carried forward next year by one of our fellow UC campuses.”

One UC DLFx attendee wrote on the post-event survey, “Attending this event reinvigorated my dedication to our mission. It was a real shot in the arm.”

Conference sponsors included the Digital Library Federation, California Digital Library, UCR Library, UC Merced Library, UC San Diego Library, UCLA Library, UCSF Library, UCI Libraries, and Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC).

The local arrangements committee was comprised of the following UCR Library team members: Digital Initiatives Program Manager Eric Milenkiewicz, Committee Chair; Associate University Librarian for the Digital Library Diane Bisom; Head of Preservation Services Patricia Smith-Hunt; Director of Research Services Brianna Marshall; Collection Strategist for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Carla Arbagey; Digital Assets Metadata Librarian Noah Geraci; and Communications Specialist Melanie Ramiro.

What the White House open access publishing guidance means for UC researchers

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Guidance from the University of California Libraries:

The federal government is making significant moves to encourage open access to research. This summer, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) made national headlines with its new guidance that, by 2026, research funded by all federal agencies should be made freely and immediately available to the public, with no embargo.

The new guidance will bring about three significant changes to the status quo:

  • Removing the 12-month delay before research publications funded by the largest federal agencies become publicly available;
  • Directing that both federally-funded research publications and their supporting data should be made publicly accessible at the time of publication; and
  • Bringing all federal agencies into alignment with this open access publishing policy.

While the agencies are being given time to determine how they will operationalize the new guidance, the principles at its heart are in sync with the University of California’s long-standing commitment to make our research freely available to the scientific community and the public.

Here is what UC researchers should know now about what to expect:

When will these changes go into effect?

The OSTP guidance recommends that all federal grantmaking agencies implement the recommended changes no later than Dec. 31, 2025. Some agencies may update their grant requirements sooner.

What will I need to do with my research articles once this policy takes effect?

While many of the details are yet to come as each federal agency determines how they will implement the OSTP guidance, what we can infer now is that:

  • We expect the agencies that already have policies regarding public access to the research they fund will continue to use their existing processes to the extent possible, updating them as needed to align with the new guidance. We will know more about those changes once the agencies release their updated public access plans.
  • If you obtain future research funding from a smaller agency that does not yet require deposit in an open access repository, the agency will develop a policy requiring you to make your funded articles open access in some form. (The details may vary by agency.)

How does this federal guidance interact with UC’s open access publishing options?

As a UC researcher, you do not have to wait for this government policy to be implemented to make your research open access. In fact, the University of California has had an Open Access Policy in place for many years that enables UC authors to make their research publicly available immediately. To do so, you have several options:

  • If you choose to publish in a journal that is part of one of UC’s transformative open access agreements, the UC libraries will pay all or part of the open access publishing fee on your behalf, using library funds that were previously allocated to pay solely for journal subscriptions.
  • If UC does not have an open access agreement with the publisher of the journal that has accepted your article, you can typically choose to pay an open access publishing fee to publish your article open access. Under the OSTP guidance, all federal agencies should allow researchers to include publication and data-sharing costs in their research budgets.
  • Another cost-free option is to upload your final accepted manuscript (i.e., prior to typesetting by the publisher) into UC’s institutional repository eScholarship. UC’s Open Access Policies allow you to make your final accepted manuscript immediately available unless the journal’s publisher requests an embargo period or a waiver of the UC policy (learn more or contact Data Librarian Kat Koziar with any questions).

If I may have to deposit a copy of my research in a government-approved repository anyway (which is the current requirement of some large federal agencies), are there still benefits to making the final published article open access?

There are access and discoverability benefits to having articles published OA on the publishers site, but the final decision depends on different factors like the goals you have for your final published article. Our librarians will be available for a fuller discussion as the individual agencies policies take effect. 

Will the new federal guidance make it easier to get funding to cover the cost of open access publishing?

While we do not yet know the details of how each agency will implement the OSTP guidance, based on the current approach of the large federal agencies, there will be a no-cost option available — such as an approved government repository — where you (or the publisher) can deposit your manuscript and meet the open access requirement at no cost.

Where and how do I share my data?

As agencies implement the OSTP guidance on data sharing, they may recommend or require specific repositories. Until those details are known, a subject-specific repository is usually the best place to share your data since it will be an intuitive location for other scientists to look for datasets in a particular field. There are also general repositories that take in a variety of subjects and interdisciplinary datasets. UC has partnered with the Dryad repository, and UC affiliates can deposit data there for free (as long as it is open and unrestricted, and contains no personally identifiable human subject information; see their FAQ for details).

Tip: When submitting data to a general repository, include data collection protocols, instruments, and other relevant documentation to ensure ease of data reuse. This will significantly enhance how FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) the data are.

Who can I contact if I have more questions?

If you have questions about our open access agreements, please contact Associate University Librarian for Content and Discovery & Deputy University Librarian Tiffany Moxham.

Memories... Library 2019 Retirees

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The end of each academic year brings many goodbyes, both farewells to graduating students and to members of our career staff who retired in 2019.

We would like to recognize and celebrate the following UCR Library colleagues, who shared some of their UCR history with us:

Sharla Desens

Music Library Manager Sharla Desens started as a Music Library student employee in 1978. She became a staff member in September 1982, as the Assistant Night Supervisor for Rivera Library.

Her favorite memory of working in the Library was when Sharla was pregnant with her second son and was working swing shift as the Night Supervisor. An older couple came to the counter, asking for her. She figured they needed help finding something, to discuss a bill, or something like that -- but it turned out that the woman had crocheted a pink and blue afghan for her baby.  She didn’t really know the couple, but apparently she had helped them and made an impression.  Sharla was very touched by the gesture.

What Sharla will miss most are the many friends she has made amongst the UCR community, both staff and library users.

The most unusual thing that happened to Sharla on the job was when she gained notoriety for assisting in the arrest of Stephen Blumberg, famous book thief and bibliomaniac.  His arrest at UCR put his fingerprints into the system, and enabled investigators to connect him with other book thefts around the country.

Some on-campus events that Sharla remembers most vividly, from her 40+ years at UCR, include:  the riots caused by the Rodney King beating, student protesters taking over the library, earthquakes, 9/11, the deaths of two sitting chancellors, graduations, and other celebrations.  Sharla remembers fires in the libraries, chickens running loose in Rivera, and evacuations during the Rivera Library renovation.  And many police incidents, which thankfully we don’t see as much these days, thanks to an increased police presence on campus, and the addition of library security guards (positions for which Sharla was an early advocate).  Sharla says she could fill up an entire book on the library, once she gets started.

Sharla vividly remembers walking around the library after the Landers Earthquake on Sunday, June 28,1992.  Library administrators were all off at the American Library Association (ALA) conference, and the Reserve Services Manager and Sharla were asked to assess the damage.  As they were walking around on the fourth floor looking at books three feet deep on the floor, a significant aftershock shook the building.  Sharla was pregnant with her youngest son at the time, and her colleague said, “Do you want to have that baby right here, right now?  Let’s get out of here!” 

Sharla’s last day was June 27, 2019. Thank you for your many years of service to the UCR Library, Sharla!

***

Additional 2019 retirees included Debbie Snow and Letitia Fossett.

The UCR Library would like to thank each of our retiring staff members, both those who shared their stories here and those who were not available for comment (perhaps because they're already busy enjoying their retirement). We are grateful to have had you as our colleagues and friends, we appreciate your many years of excellent service, and we wish you all the best in your future!