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More News April 17, 2023

The UCR Library acquired access to several primary source archives from Gale and AM, formerly known as Adam Matthew Digital.

New resources from Gale:

• Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive 

  Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. The archive consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries covering the history of the slave trade.

• Native American Studies from Archives Unbound 

  Collection of primary sources and more sourced from the following archives:

  • Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries' Letters, 1833-1893
  • American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism
  • Meriam Report on Indian Administration and the Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the U.S.
  • The Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and Company
  • The War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824

• Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part 2 

  Primary source collection for research into the cultural, political, and social history of Native Peoples from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The UCR Library has access to parts 1 & 2.

New resources from AM:

• Colonial Caribbean: Colonial Office Files from The National Archives, UK

  Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, Colonial Caribbean makes available materials from 27 Colonial Office file classes from The National Archives, UK. Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.

• Confidential Print: Latin America

  This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.

• Empire Studies from AM Scholar 

  This collection offers a rich array of primary and secondary sources for the study of the British Empire. It features material on British colonial policy and government; perspectives on life in British colonies; the relationship between gender and empire; race; and class.

• Literary Print Culture: The Stationers' Company Archive

  The Stationers’ Company Archive is one of the most important resources for understanding the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, and the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding. Explore extremely rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century in this resource of research material for historians and literary scholars.

• Medieval and Early Modern Studies from AM Scholar 

  This collection provides a wide range of primary sources covering social, cultural, political, scientific, and religious perspectives from the 12th to early18th centuries. Document types include illuminated manuscripts, personal papers, diaries and letters, rare books, receipt books, and manuscript sheet music. The breadth of sources provided within this collection is extraordinary, from sources concerning the Black Death to the Restoration of the English monarchy and the Glorious Revolution.

• Medieval Family Life: The Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor and Armburgh Papers

  Includes five major letter collections and associated manuscripts from fifteenth-century England, which take the user into the world of medieval families, businesses, relationships, trade, politics and communities. Medieval Family Life presents full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts of which these letter collections are constituted, alongside fully searchable transcriptions drawn from available printed editions.

• Medieval Travel Writing

  Medieval Travel Writing is an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy. The core of the material is a collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries around the world, dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and focusing on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. Texts include some of the most influential prose works of the late Middle Ages – notably the books of Marco Polo and ‘Sir John Mandeville’ – but also important items by lesser-known authors such as John of Plano Carpini and Odoric of Pordenone.

• Nineteenth Century Literary Society: The John Murray Publishing Archive

  Nineteenth Century Literary Society makes available more than 1,400 items from the archive of the historic John Murray publishing company. Primary source materials span the entirety of the long nineteenth century and document the golden era of the House of Murray from its inception in 1768. Records digitized in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.

• Race Relations in America

  Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.

More News May 30, 2019

The UCR Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of several new online databases, archives, reference works, and more.

These new resources, selected by librarians in the Collection Strategies Department, will enhance the library’s existing distinctive collections, support emerging areas of research at UCR, and provide access to valuable research and teaching resources.

These new resources include:

PrepSTEP by Learning Express

PrepSTEP is an online collection of test preparation materials, including practice exams, assessment quizzes, and skill-building exercises.  Tests covered include the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, CSET, and more.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers

• Los Angeles Sentinel, 1934-2005
• Baltimore Afro-American, 1893-1988
• New York Amsterdam News, 1922-1993

Archives of Sexuality and Gender

The library now has access to the complete Archives of Sexuality and Gender collection, which includes primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. 

• Parts 1-2: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940
• Part 3: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926

This digital collection, drawn from Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America from Its Discovery to the Present Time, features a collection of more than 29,000 books, pamphlets, serials, and other documents

American Historical Periodicals Collection Part 6

This sixth collection of historical periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society was added by the library in addition to Sets 1-5.  The entire collection is now available on the Gale Primary Sources platform, and is cross-searchable with other Gale primary sources.  The collection includes unusual and short-lived magazines as well as better-known titles with long runs, covering the colonial period through the twentieth century.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music

This comprehensive online reference source for world music features more than 9,000 pages of materials and 300 audio recordings.  The encyclopedia also includes musical illustrations, photographs, drawings, song texts, score examples, charts, and maps.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part II

This database expands on the library’s access to Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part I.  The complete collection consists of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the eighteenth century, as well as thousands of important works from the Americas.  Materials in the collection include books, pamphlets, sermons, sheet music, and more.

Archives Unbound African Collection

This library has purchased the Archives Unbound African American Collection, which includes 13 discrete collections of primary source materials.  Selected titles include:

• Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement
• Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist, and Woman
• Rastafari Ephemeral Publications from the Written Rastafari Archives Project
• James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi

For a full list of collections included Archives Unbound, please click here.

More Past Exhibits March 24, 2023

Discovering intelligent life in the cosmos has been a long-anticipated moment for humanity and fertile ground for fantastic stories since the dawn of science fiction. Nineteenth-century speculative fiction writers such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells envisioned discovering life on the Moon or the invasion of Earth by Martians. From these early stories, encounters between humans and alien species (often described as “first contact” stories) have served as a vehicle for the exploration of possible futures and a reflection upon humanity’s place both on Earth and in the cosmos.

Within the context of science fiction, first contact can be thought of as an event in which two intelligent species encounter each other for the first time. Sometimes this encounter is peaceful or friendly and is about establishing communications or sharing knowledge. Other times the first contact scenario begins with a hostile act, like a war or invasion. Many of the themes found in these stories have parallels with historical examples of European explorers and colonizers encountering indigenous peoples in sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, or Oceania.

There are many ways in which humans and aliens could engage in first contact. This exhibit will explore some of the forms that these types of stories can take and what messages they may have for us here on Earth. Each display case focuses on a single theme or type of human-alien encounter with examples pulled from the Eaton Collection. However, it is rare that a book is limited to a single theme, so many of the examples in this exhibit will be present in more than one category.

View the exhibit Monday through Friday in Special Collections & University Archives from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

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More News March 29, 2022

UCR Library patrons can access leisure and academic magazines on OverDrive!

A year ago, the UCR Library acquired access to the OverDrive platform for UCR students, faculty, and staff. OverDrive offers UCR Library patrons access to popular books and audiobooks using their tablet, computer, smartphone, or the Libby app. 

Our OverDrive collection has grown since 2021 to include titles from our Allen Leisure Reading collection, the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, children’s books, popular science books, and now magazines.

The OverDrive magazine collection is quite large at almost 4,000 titles. Patrons can borrow a variety of magazines ranging from news publications such as The Economist and The New Yorker, science and technology periodicals including New Scientist and Wired, arts magazines such as ARTNews and Rolling Stone, and general interest titles like Variety and Newsweek. 

For more information on accessing OverDrive, please review this guide or head straight to ucr.overdrive.com and check out all that OverDrive has to offer.

Have a book or magazine you want on OverDrive that isn’t available? Make a purchase suggestion by emailing Carla Arbagey.

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More Past Exhibits /exhibits/and-theres-humor-it-shakespeare-and-four-humors March 23, 2023

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) created characters that are among the richest and most humanly recognizable in all of literature. Yet Shakespeare understood human personality in the terms available to his age—that of the now-discarded theory of the four bodily humors –blood, bile, melancholy, and phlegm. These four humors were understood to define peoples’ physical and mental health, and determined their personality, as well.

The language of the four humors pervades Shakespeare's plays and their influence is felt above all in a belief that emotional states are physically determined. Carried by the bloodstream, the four humors bred the core passions of anger, grief, hope, and fear—the emotions conveyed so powerfully in Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies. Curator Gail Kern Paster explains “The four humors were an early typology for human personality. Shakespeare uses them, even as he transcends them, to create the vivid characters whose emotions continue to fascinate and delight us.”

“And there’s the humor of it”: Shakespeare and the four humors explores the role played by the four humors in several of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays through beautiful imagery and rare books from both the National Library of Medicine and the Folger Shakespeare Library, and examines more modern interpretations of the four humors in contemporary medicine.

This exhibition was developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

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More Current Exhibits September 19, 2024

The Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian is a testament to the advocacy, expertise and legacy of its founders.

Rupert Costo (Cahuilla) and his wife Jeannette Henry-Costo (Eastern Cherokee) have supported UCR since its founding, even helping advocate for a UC campus to be built in Riverside in the first place. They believed in the power of education, and fought for Native American students to have equal access to education throughout their lives. In addition to helping bring a UC campus to Riverside, the Costos co-founded the American Indian Historical Society in San Francisco, and helped organize the First Convocation of the American Indian Scholars, a pivotal moment in the development of the field of Native American Studies. Throughout their lives, the Costos have been on the forefront of expanding access and representation of Native peoples in higher education. This legacy is deeply embodied in all three aspects of the endowment they gifted to UCR: their personal book collection, which forms the Costo Library of the American Indian, as well as their archives and their vision for the Costo Chair in American Indian History (now Affairs).

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 this exhibit and learn more about the Costos, the American Indian Historical Society, and why the Costos chose UCR to house their materials.

Event	First in the Nation: A History of the Costo Library
Location	Tomás Rivera Library, 4th floor, Costo Library in Special Collections & University Archives (enter the double glass doors)
Dates	Monday, September 23, 2024 - Friday, June 6, 2025
Hours	View this exhibit during SCUA's operating hours.  Monday  - Friday: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  NOTE: We are closed during UCR observed holidays.
Parking	Free Visitor Parking is available on Fridays, starting at 12:00 PM through 6:00 AM Monday morning in the unreserved spaces of the following parking lots/structures: Lot 6 Blue Lot 13 Blue Big Springs Parking Structure 2 Lot 26 Gold Lot 30 Gold Lot 50 Gold Paid Visitor Parking information can be found here.

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