More News March 06, 2017

UCR Library is delighted to announce that Raul Aguilera has joined the UCR Library team effective today, March 6, 2017 as our Access Services Desk Assistant - Rivera.

Raul will be located in Circulation/Course Reserves on the first floor of the Rivera Library, reporting to Leslie Settle, Circulation Services Desk Supervisor.

Raul earned his BA in English from UC Riverside.

Most recently, Raul served as the Library Assistant 3 at the University of California, Irvine. Raul also has experience working with the UCR Library in his role as an Affiliate - Library Assistant 3 at the Orbach Science Library.   

• Read more about Using the Library

More News November 28, 2016

Three UCR Library employees presented as part of a Homecoming panel at the Campus Showcase Exhibit – Working on Campus on Saturday, November 19, 2016.

Library Human Resources Generalist Wendy Williams-Clark spoke as part of the employers panel, and members of the student employee panel included library student assistants Mohammed Jawara, a Political Science Law and Society major, and Sarah Ready, a double major in Business and Dance. Both are undergraduate students in the class of 2019. Attendees included incoming and current UC Riverside students as well as parents of prospective and current students.

On the student employee panel, Mohammed and Sarah shared their perspectives about working on campus and discussed how the job skills they learn will help to prepare them for success after graduation. Mohammed explained, “The majority of the jobs offered on campus impart onto students valuable skills that will come in very handy in their future careers.”

Sarah explained, “Although each position offered at the panel has numerous workers, the library is where student workers form more of a team or community rather than just a co-worker relationship.” Mohammed agreed, “One of the reasons why I like working at the library is because I get the opportunity to be part of a very supportive library staff team. Another reason is because I get the opportunity to help and also interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds.”

For Sarah, there are more benefits still. “I like working in the Library because I’m fascinated by books,” she said. “Although information is at our fingertips with the internet, I think that there’s value in picking up a book, flipping through the pages and finding the information on your own, and I encourage students to do so.”

“The student employees love working for UC Riverside,” Wendy commented. “They genuinely appreciate being able to contribute in any way they can. They are the front-line of customer service, no matter what department they work in, and they said that they’re learning real-world skills in a way they never could if they were working somewhere else.”

The employers panel addressed questions about requirements for students to get jobs in different departments, what to do if a student has no prior work experience, how to apply for on-campus jobs, application materials and best practices, work-life balance for student employees, and how scheduling works with student class schedules.

“It was fascinating to hear how all the different departments feel about their student employees,” Wendy said. “The library couldn’t function without ours, and it was great to hear that other departments feel the same way.”

More News May 21, 2018

• "I am nominating Melanie for a KUDOS award because she goes above and beyond in her work as Communication Specialist. Melanie is a design maven. Her work is polished and extremely professional. She has steadily grown the brand of the library, not only in the UCR community but beyond it, too. Beyond her many skills, she is also a pleasure to work with. She remains very organized as she juggles her sizable workload and she consistently shares exceptionally high-quality work despite facing frequent tight timelines. UCR Library is so lucky to have Melanie!"

Please join us in celebrating this library staff member's contributions!

More News October 30, 2024

Explore the unique and thought-provoking exhibits and displays currently on view in the Tomás Rivera Library. From political memorabilia to rare artifacts, visit soon before they're gone!

 

Political Campaign Buttons

Tomás Rivera Library, 1st Floor (left of the entrance)
View until November 26, 2024 during normal operating hours.
Explore a selection of presidential campaign buttons from our Harold and Barbara Durian Collection of Political Campaign Buttons. The complete collection, including additional political ephemera, is available for research in Special Collections & University Archives on the 4th floor and has buttons from the 1870s to 2016. Learn more. 

---

First in the Nation: A History of the Costo Library

Tomás Rivera Library, 4th Floor, Costo Library in Special Collections & University Archives
View until March 21, 2025, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
This exhibit documents the history of the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian, located on the 4th floor of the Tomás Rivera Library in Special Collections & University Archives. View to learn about Rupert and his wife Jeannette Henry-Costo, why UCR was chosen to house the library, and more. Learn more. 

---

Unexpected Artifacts

Tomás Rivera Library, 4th Floor, Special Collections & University Archives
View until December 20, 2024, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Discover surprising items Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA) has collected over the years, including protest armbands, ballet shoes, family quilts, and Cuban cigars. These unique artifacts reflect the diverse, sometimes unexpected, nature of SCUA's collections. Learn more.

---

Día de los Muertos Altar

Tomás Rivera Library, 1st Floor (right of the entrance against the blue wall)
View until November 3, 2024 during normal operating hours.
This altar—created by Dr. Amalia Cabezas, the UCR LGBT Resource Center, and volunteers—raises awareness about violence against transgender sex workers, honoring those lost and highlighting the importance of remembrance.

More News April 11, 2012

Renowned rare book preservationist Terry Belanger will speak at April 18 celebration.

By Bettye Miller

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — UCR Library will celebrate the acquisition of its 3 millionth volume in a ceremony on April 18 at 2:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Tomás Rivera Library on the UC Riverside campus.

The keynote speaker will be Terry Belanger, University Professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and founding director of Rare Book School, a nonprofit institute devoted to the history of books and printing, and to rare books and special collections librarianship.  He won a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2005.

Mike Terry, pipe major of the UCR Pipe Band, will perform an original composition, “Literary Notes” (An Ode to the Book).   A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public. Parking costs $5 in Lot 6. To RSVP call (951) 827-4941 or email terrig@ucr.edu.

Achieving a collection size of 3 million volumes is a milestone for UCR, said University Librarian Ruth M. Jackson. The library celebrated its 1 millionth volume in March 1981, and its 2 millionth volume in November 2001. Currently the number of volumes held by the libraries is 3,214,420. Of that total, more than 404,000 are e-books.

With this achievement, UCR ranks 81st for the number of volumes held among the 115 academic research libraries in the United States and Canada that are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). That places UC Riverside just below UC Irvine, which ranks 77th, and just above UC Santa Barbara, which ranks 84th.

“The digital transition is occurring at a steady pace,” Jackson said, and will ultimately transform libraries in much the same way as the printing press revolutionized the process of book-making and distribution in the 15th century.

Printed books will continue to co-exist with e-books and other formats and will remain a staple of university and research libraries for some time, she said.  Currently, only 20 percent of all in-copyright scholarly books published in the U.S. and worldwide are fully available in digital form, she said. Electronic books allow multiple users to browse their pages at the same time; can be viewed and accessed on-site in the library, or remotely from home, student residences, and faculty offices using either hard-wired computers, laptops, or hand held mobile devices with proper UCR authentication; and will ultimately offer vast advantages for full-text searching/data mining as the trend continues.

Research libraries, such as the UCR Library, typically purchase books upon the recommendation of library subject-specialists, in collaboration with faculty, based upon the national publication output and the University’s profile, Jackson explained.

In fiscal year 2011, the UCR Library initiated a pilot for testing a demand-driven acquisition (DDA) system that enables all UCR-affiliated library users to access and read licensed e-books loaded into the Scotty catalog by three major vendors. The e-books and the titles for printed books are chosen for loading based upon the university’s academic and research profile. If an e-book or the title for a printed book is accessed or used three times, a purchase is automatically made by the system for the UCR Library, making the electronic title part of the permanent collection. When the title for a print book is accessed for the first time, the system will ask the user if he or she wants to place an automatic order for the title.

The UCR Library will analyze purchasing patterns based upon the pilot at the end of the current fiscal year to determine how the two models of selecting materials for permanent addition to the collections differ and complement each other.

“It’s still very much a print world  in many ways and will be so for a while in several key academic disciplines and publishing fields such as the arts, humanities, social sciences, foreign language materials, and selected areas of the sciences ,” Jackson said. “It’s also one of the most exciting times to be a librarian and information scientist because of the mix of information resources we are able to make available to our users.

“The digital transition in publishing is changing the whole information environment. Libraries have a significant role to play in reshaping the campus information environment and developing new ways to manage, deliver, and preserve both print and digital resources, as we continue our role of making easily available the scientific, social and cultural publishing output of the nation and the world in support of research and learning.”

First e-book acquired by UCR Library: “Native American health care: January 1980-January 1993,) Patricia La Caille

10 Most Popular Books in the UCR Library 2011-2012 (based on circulation data)

1. “Outliers: the story of success,” Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

2. “Person and reality; an introduction to metaphysics,” ed. Peter Anthony Bertocci et al (1958)

3. “Eat, pray, love: one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia,” Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)

4. “God and creation: three interpretations of the universe,” John Elof Boodin (1934)

5. “GRE exam: premier program,” Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (2008, 2009)

6. “Handbook of fuel cells: fundamentals, technology, and applications,” ed. Wolf Vielstich, et al (2003)

7. “Cracking the GRE,” with DVD, Karen Lurie, et al (2010)

8. “Crisis intervention theory and practice: a clinical handbook,” Ann Wolbert Burgess, et al. (1981)

9. “Catching Fire,” Suzanne Collins (2009)

10. “The Hunger Games,” Suzanne Collins (2008)

More News April 07, 2020

The UCR Library is pleased to announce the following recent resource acquisitions:

Civil War Primary Resource Documents

Civil War Primary Source Documents from The New-York Historical Society contains unique manuscript material chronicling all aspects of the American Civil War from warfare on land, at sea, in hospitals and prison camps, and reactions and impressions of the War from the home front. The collection, comprised of more than 110,000 pages, focuses on the War as it was fought from 1861 to 1865 and represents both Northern and Southern perspectives.

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society is a collection of more than 30,000 pages of historically unique material from more than 200 orderly books spanning from 1748 to 1817. The collection includes both British and American orderly books, a form of manuscript journals kept by military units containing their orders from higher-ranking officers in addition to other information essential to military operations, dating from the French and Indian War through the War of 1812, with the bulk representing the activities of American forces during the Revolutionary War.

Cannabis NewsBank

Cannabis NewsBank: Research Edition is a powerful, multi-disciplinary resource for students and researchers seeking information related to the cannabis and hemp industries. Its searchable database features current and historical news and information from more than 12,000 sources, including over three million cannabis and hemp related reports, documents and articles. This one-of- a-kind research tool features content from prominent cannabis and hemp industry publications as well as in-depth local coverage from every state in the United States, Canada, and countries across the globe.

New Sections of JoVE: The Journal of Visualized Experiments

JoVE is a video journal platform featuring videos that teach fundamental concepts and techniques for the lab.  Via JoVE, researchers and students can view the intricate details of cutting-edge experiments rather than read them in text articles.  The UCR Library has added two collections to our JoVE offerings: JoVe Science Education Chemistry & Advanced Biology and JoVE Immunology and Infection.

Henry Stewart Talks: Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection

HSTalks provides specially prepared, animated, online, audio-visual lectures, seminar-style talks and case studies.  Editors and lecturers are leading world experts and practitioners, including Nobel Laureates, drawn from academia, research institutes, commerce, industry, the professions and government. 

UK National Archives, Collections CO1 and CO5

Colonial State Papers

This collection, available on the ProQuest platform, includes Collection CO 1 from The UK National Archives, officially titled Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers and the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739.

Colonial America: Complete CO5 Files from UK National Archives, 1600-1822

Colonial America, via the Adam Matthew Platform, makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.  The UCR Library has access to Module I: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries, and Module II: Towards Revolution.  For more information on these modules, see http://www.colonialamerica.amdigital.co.uk/Introduction/NatureAndScope. 

Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings

This diverse and comprehensive collection focuses on the cultural study of music and explores content from across the globe.  Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study. 

American Indian Newspapers

From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, American Indian Newspapers contains nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the United States and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, this resource allows researchers to discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.

American Indian Newspapers was developed with, and has only been made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned. 

New Subjects from Oxford Bibliographies Online

The UCR Library has added six new topical areas to our Oxford Bibliographies Online collection: 

• African American Studies

• Atlantic History

• Buddhism

• Environmental Science

• Philosophy​

• Sociology

Oxford Bibliographies are developed cooperatively with scholars and librarians worldwide, and offer exclusive, authoritative research guides across a variety of subject areas. The Oxford Bibliographies combine the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia and direct researchers to the best available scholarship in a given subject.  The UCR Library also has access to the following Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology, Art History, Chinese Studies, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Latin American Studies, Latinx Studies, Music, Psychology, and Public Health.

More News September 25, 2024

We are excited to announce Dr. Raymond Uzwyshyn is our new Director of Research Services.

Ray joined us on Monday, September 9 and brings a wealth of experience and a distinguished academic research background, including a Ph.D. from New York University, MLIS from the University of Western Ontario, and an MBA (IT Project Management) from American Public University.  

Before joining us, Ray served as Research Impact Coordinator (full professor) at Mississippi and Texas State University Libraries. His work involved supporting the academic research lifecycle through development of digital research ecosystems, AI possibilities for research across departments and supporting and developing innovative digital systems, projects, and infrastructures for faculty and graduate students’ research.  

Ray shares what sparked his interest in the Director of Research Services position here at the UCR Library, "I was quite intrigued by this position's unique technological focus for research directions and current wealth of new digital and IT innovation possible this way. I'm a huge believer in new technologies and enabling the university scholarly community with these new infrastructures for communicating, collaborating and enabling research."

Ray hopes to continue to shape the Research Services department into an innovative and interdisciplinary service infrastructure where staff expertise and cutting-edge technologies—such as AI, augmented and virtual reality, data, digital research archives and multimedia—can empower faculty and student research directions to create national level best-in-class projects.

Outside of his professional work, Ray has longstanding interests in the humanities and the arts. "I still have a passion for film, art history, literature and the socio-historical valences of media, more recently—everything AI and new media," Ray says. He also enjoys hiking, yoga, meditation, strength training, and jogging to maintain work/life balance with academic and creative pursuits.

We are thrilled to welcome Ray to our team and look forward to the exciting contributions he will bring to the UCR Library and the UCR research community.  

More News October 29, 2015

First Klein Librarian raising profile of Eaton Collection

Though only in her first month at the UCR Library, JJ Jacobson is already filled with ideas, energy, and ambition. As the inaugural Jay Kay and Doris Klein Science Fiction Librarian, she manages and curates the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy – the largest publicly-accessible collection of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and utopian literature in the world.

Jacobson brings a broad range of experience to the Eaton Collection. Once a restaurant owner, chef, baker, and then sourdough consultant, the California native was drawn to library and information school by her interest in how people talk about and engage with what they cook and eat.

University of Michigan provided Jacobson with her foundational education in library and information science, and sparked a passion in her to make the world a better place by bringing together people, information, and technology.

Growing up at Renaissance Faires, her interest in the “history of everyday life” stimulated Jacobson’s personal passion for living history — similar to historical re-enactment, but with less focus on combat and more on the daily activities of a certain period — and alternate history, a genre of fiction in which history unfolds differently from reality. This led her to experiment with virtual worlds. Specifically, Jacobson became deeply involved in Second Life in a unique way that mirrored, and later reinforced, her career: she became a librarian.
 
With sponsorship from another Second Life Resident, Jacobson built Caledon Library, pictured above. It has since grown into an entire system of virtual library branches. "Residents moved to Caledon because of the library," she boasted. Jacobson would later develop kits for others to build and manage their own libraries in Second Life. Real-life libraries also established presences in Second Life.

Reading, Jacobson says, is a prevalent hobby in her family. Her father was a fan of science fiction in its golden age, and she and her brother were both avid readers, constantly marveling at the 8-foot shelf of paperbacks in her father’s personal collection.

Jacobson’s goal is to leverage the ever-broadening interest in the “Eatonverse” genres to build a deeper understanding of the collection. By drawing on the UCR community’s enthusiasm for these genres across formats and uses, she aims to maintain Eaton’s international prestige while positioning it as a leader in the developing ecosystem of similar collections across the world.

More News September 30, 2022