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More News April 13, 2018

Riverside, Calif (ucr.edu): On Thursday, May 10, NASA Astronomer Trina L. Ray will give a presentation at UC Riverside, “Cassini’s Legacy: Saturn’s Secrets Revealed.”

Ray will highlight the most exciting discoveries of NASA’s 20-year mission to Saturn, which ended with the Grand Finale on September 15, 2017. The talk will provide an overview of the questions the Cassini mission has answered (and will continue to generate) about the planet Saturn, its magnetosphere and spectacular rings, and Titan and the other icy moons.

• Date: Thursday, May 10
• Time: 4-5 p.m.
• Location: HUB 269
• RSVP: https://trinaray-ucr.eventbrite.com

The international Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997 and entered orbit around Saturn on June 30, 2004. The 23-foot tall, 14-foot wide, 6-ton spacecraft was the largest most sophisticated outer planet spacecraft ever built. Its key discoveries included liquid methane seas on Titan, and the global ocean with indications of hydrothermal activity within the moon Enceladus. Even in its last moments Cassini added to the massive amount of data it had collected.

This program is cosponsored by UCR Library and the Librarians Association of the University of California - Riverside Division (LAUC-R).

About the presenter: Trina L. Ray is an astronomer at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she started her career with a bang – working on the Voyager Neptune Encounter in August of 1989. A few years ago she accepted the position of Cassini Science Planning and Sequencing Team Deputy, the team that coordinated all the science and uplinked the final sequences to Cassini, and focused on the exciting end of mission planning. Trina received her Bachelor's degree in Physics from CSUN and her master's degree in Astronomy from San Diego State University. Trina has received numerous awards, including a NASA medal for Exceptional Service, and she is an active public speaker for NASA, invited to give many talks around the nation.

More News March 26, 2018

When the Creat’R Lab first opened its doors in April 2017, it was touted as a space for creative collaboration between students and faculty from all different disciplines.

Members of UCR’s student Cosplay Brigade have spent the past year doing precisely that as they've been preparing for the second annual Geek On event, which will take place May 6, 2018 at UCR's Highlander Union Building (HUB). Cosplay is an activity in which participants dress up or wear accessories to represent specific characters or genres.

Geek On is a collaborative event produced by several student organizations at the University of California, Riverside – nicknamed “Geek Union” by club members, including Cosplay Brigade, Greenwood Film Society (also known as Anime Club), and Secret Sword & Sorcery Society (tabletop gaming club).

Cosplay Brigade president Yan “Winnie” Lai was ecstatic when she found out that the Creat’R Lab was open to non-engineering students. “We got so excited because nobody ever listens to us, nobody ever helped us,” explained Lai, a History major. “The library was the first place on campus to listen to us.”

Creat’R Lab has hosted Cosplay Brigade workshops each month on topics ranging from foam fabrication, sewing, costume and prop making, and more. They plan to showcase many of this year’s creations at the Creat’R Lab Anniversary Showcase on Thursday, May 3, and also at Geek On.

Economics major Robert Garcia of the Secret Sword & Sorcery Society was excited that 3D printing was made available to non-engineering majors as members of his club prepared for Geek On. “Miniatures are what we use as a table-top role-playing organization. Each person has a mini representing their character and we can start using the Creat’R Lab to make our own. And lots of other clubs would be interested in learning how to do 3D modeling, 3D printing.”

“Geek Union could work more closely with the Creat’R Lab. Other, bigger clubs like IEEE have their own room, but since we don’t, it could help a lot,” explained John Berba, a recent graduate in Political Science and International Affairs and member of the Greenwood Film Society (Anime Club).

The collaborators also view Geek On as an excellent way to entice prospective students to choose UCR. “When you see something that you really like and that there’s a club that’s specifically dedicated to that, you get really excited about that,” Lai explained.

Fellow Cosplay Brigade member and Bioengineering major Jocelyn “Josh” Kiyama agreed, “I remember coming into orientation and Highlander Day, and when I found these clubs, I felt like, ‘Why didn’t I find them sooner?’”

Lai concluded, “Maybe with the library’s example, we can convince other campus organizations to throw us a bone and let us run some of the things that we’re passionate about. These events have the potential to get so big that UCR could become known for it.”

Registration is open for the Creat’R Lab Anniversary Showcase and also for Geek On. Both events are free to attend.

• Read more about Rare Books and Other Special Collections

More News February 24, 2017

January 2017 saw the release of Duplicator Underground: The Independent Publishing Industry in Communist Poland, 1976-89 (Slavica Publishers), edited by UCR Deputy University Librarian Ann Frenkel, retired UCR Librarian Gwido Zlatkes, and Polish historian Paweł Sowiński.

The book is the first comprehensive scholarly discussion in English of Polish independent publishing in the 1970s and 1980s. Underground publishing reached a semi-industrial scale and represented a significant social movement which ultimately contributed to the end of Communism in Poland. The book sheds light onto the phenomenon of the Polish so-called “second circulation,” including discussions of various aspects of underground printing, distribution, and circulation of independent publications.  The book includes scholarly essays as well as primary source documents.

Deputy University Librarian Frenkel and Zlatkes, a librarian with graduate degrees in philology and Jewish history, have been working together for almost 20 years as translators and editors. This volume represents their collaboration with Professor Sowinski who is a specialist in underground publishing in East-Central Europe, dissident movements, mass-leisure, and festivals.

While working in both Special Collections and in Metadata Services in the UCR Library, Zlatkes noticed that many of the fanzines in the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy had been printed in the same way that most underground publications were made when he lived in Poland and was involved as a journalist and editor with the Polish dissident movement during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Zlatkes stated in the book’s introduction that while scholarly writings to date frequently recognize the role of independent publishing in the Polish anticommunist dissident movement, very little exists that focuses on the technical aspect of printing and production. Duplicator Underground is intended to fill that void.

The genesis for this book came in 2011, when Zlatkes was awarded the American Printing History Association Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History, and embarked on a six-week scouting trip to Poland. Further research was supported by grants from the Librarians Association of the University of California. Then in 2013-2014, when Zlatkes was selected as a Fulbright Research Scholar, he spent nine months studying underground printing in Poland at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This research cemented the collaboration between the three editors, particularly with Paweł Sowiński who helped form the active network of authors who contributed their scholarly output for the book.

 In addition to scholarly articles, “Duplicator Underground” includes contemporary narratives and testimonies from publishers, editors, printers, distributors, and even police officials. The book shares stories about how anonymous activists and near-obsolete technologies changed history amidst a climate of government censorship where printing anything without state permission – even obituaries and wedding invitations – was deemed a punishable offense.

Frenkel said, “This anthology is valuable not only for researchers, but also for use in teaching. What better way to introduce students to the topic than reading firsthand about the methods employed by underground printers to evade a police 'tail,' or a detailed description of homespun printing techniques that use underwear elastic and laundry detergent?”

Duplicator Underground is available at the UCR Library, as well as for purchase from Amazon.

More News July 24, 2025

IOP Publishing (IOPP) and the University of California (UC) recently announced a new transformative open access agreement that will accelerate publishing and expand access to high-quality research in physics and related disciplines. 

The three-year agreement will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access articles in all of IOPP's owned journals and most of its partner journals, a total of 77 titles, and will advance the university’s efforts to empower more of its authors to share their research freely with the world.

“As a global leader in open access, this new agreement enables UC to continue advancing equitable access to scientific knowledge,” 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. “This agreement not only supports researchers in physics and related areas but also reinforces UC’s commitment to maximizing the visibility and impact of the world-class research conducted across our campuses.”

Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover the full cost of publishing open access for corresponding authors at all 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who choose to publish in IOPP’s full open access and hybrid journals, as well as most partner journals. To maximize the number of UC researchers who can benefit from the newly signed agreement, authors of qualifying articles published since January 1, 2025, will be given the opportunity to retrospectively convert their article to open access, with the open access fees fully covered. Authors who have already published open access since January 1 will be offered refunds for open access fees already paid.

Authors can use the IOPP Journal Finder to easily verify if the IOPP journal they wish to publish in meets their funder requirements or is covered by a transformative agreement. UC authors can also use UC’s Journal Open Access Lookup Tool (JOLT) to search for journals covered by any of UC's systemwide open access agreements (including IOPP's).

Julian Wilson, Chief Sales Officer at IOP Publishing, commented: “In a time of great uncertainty around funding for US researchers, we stand firm in our support of independent, open science. As well as removing the administrative burden of dealing with invoices for article publication charges and supporting researchers, this agreement also offers authors greater visibility and impact for their research. Our open access articles typically receive 70% higher downloads and 15% higher citations when compared with non-open access articles in the same journal, underscoring the value of this initiative.”

This new agreement adds to UC’s and IOPP’s rapidly growing portfolios of transformative open access agreements. The university has active open access partnerships with 22 of the largest publishers of UC research. IOPP’s partnerships now include over 1,000 institutions across 40 countries, reinforcing IOPP’s commitment to advancing open science and global access to academic research. 

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If you have questions, please view the agreement FAQ page. You can also contact UCR STEM Collection Strategist Michele Potter about this agreement or general questions about open access publishing options at UCR.
 

More News February 10, 2020

One of only nine living Tuskegee Airmen, retired United States Air Force Colonel Charles McGee has kicked off 2020 with fanfare befitting a centenarian.

On Feb. 2, he presented the coin for the on-field coin toss for Superbowl LIV at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, FL, along with three other 100-year-old World War II veterans. The NFL ceremony acknowledged the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and celebrated 100 years of professional football.

During the 2020 State of the Union address on Feb. 4, the U.S. President recognized McGee, announcing his recent honorary promotion to Brigadier General. McGee saluted as the audience gave two standing ovations while 13-year-old Iain Lanphier stood beside his great-grandfather, smiling proudly up at his hero and inspiration. Lanphier hopes to join the U.S. Space Force, the newest branch of the Armed Forces, inspired by McGee’s achievements.

His noteworthy life and military career are represented in the Charles E. McGee papers (MS 272), which are available at the UCR Library in Special Collections and University Archives on the fourth floor of the Tomás Rivera Library. McGee donated his collection of military documents, administrative records, photographs and artifacts to the UCR Library in 2015. A small portion of the collection has been digitized and made available online through Calisphere. “We are currently in the process of completing the digitization,” said Tiffany Moxham, Assistant University Librarian for Content and Discovery. “It should be up before summer.”

A Cleveland, Ohio native, McGee enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and became part of the Tuskegee Airmen, earning his pilot’s wings and graduating from Class 43-F in 1943. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first group of African-American military aviators (fighter and bomber pilots), who served in World War II after training at Tuskegee Army Airfield and Moton Field in Alabama. Before the Tuskegee Airmen, no African-American had been a U.S. military pilot. McGee was stationed in Italy with the 302nd Fighter Squadron of the 332d Fighter Group.

In his 30 years of military service, he flew 409 aerial fighter combat missions, including service in WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War -- one of the highest counts recorded by any Air Force fighter pilot. McGee retired from active duty in 1973 with many service awards.

Additionally, in 2007 President Bush and the U.S. Congress awarded the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, to McGee and all other Tuskegee Airmen, both living and deceased. In 2011, McGee was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. George Lucas consulted McGee for his 2012 feature film Red Tails, named after the distinctive markings of the Tuskegee Airmen’s aircraft. McGee also earned the Eagle Scout award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1940.

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.

More News February 28, 2020

Starting with her appointment in Oct. 1953, UC Riverside’s first Dean of Women Loda Mae Davis helped to shape the future not just for Highlander women but for all UCR students.

In addition to serving as an Assistant Professor of Psychology, Davis was later appointed as the Associate Dean of Students. She firmly believed in sexual equality and drafted policies to support that ideal, making Riverside the first campus in the UC system to allow women students the same dormitory privileges that men had always enjoyed. Davis also advocated for the female faculty to have the same membership rights as the male faculty.

Many male students opined that Davis was "too liberal." Colleagues claimed that she frequently said that UCR was "the most sexist place she had ever worked," although Davis did not call herself a feminist.

The Loda Mae Davis papers (UA 082) include correspondence, publications, fiction and non-fiction manuscripts, speech transcripts, photographs, videos, audio cassettes, and other material that documents Davis’ work and the contributions of female faculty members who contributed to the UCR academic community. Received in 2015, the collection was first made available for research in Special Collections and University Archives at the Tomás Rivera Library starting in fall quarter 2018.

Born in 1898 to pioneer homesteaders in Washington state, Davis and her sister worked to support their own education. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1923 with honors in commerce, followed by a masters of science in business in 1932. Graduate work in psychology at UC Berkeley preceded Davis’ 1953 appointment at UCR.

An economic analyst, consumer rights advocate, and world traveler, Davis worked for the Works Project Administration in 1936 and other Federal entities during the Roosevelt administration. In 1940, she became a consultant to the Consumer Division of the National Council of Defense, a job which led to her becoming the head of the first field staff of the Office of Price Administration. Following World War II, she worked for the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Davis traveled throughout the United States to educate the public on the federal rationing and price control program. Additionally, she traveled extensively as a single woman, including trips to Panama and Mexico in 1934; Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, England, Canada and the Arctic Circle in 1935; and China and Japan in 1937. The onset of World War II provided other travel opportunities, as did a 1960 sabbatical which she spent in Samoa.

Davis stayed active within the UCR community after her 1964 retirement, helping to found the Loda Mae Davis Archive and to serve as a mentor to women in academia. She lived in Riverside until her death in 1989.

Davis’ legacy continues to impact the lives of today’s Highlander women through the Dean Emerita Loda Mae Davis Women's Archives fund (which supports the acquisition of materials documenting aspects of women's leadership, accomplishments, and attainments as scholars, writers, creative artists, activists, citizens, etc., and women's changing roles in society), the Dean Loda Mae Davis Endowed Award (est. 1964 by The Prytanean Society, a women's honor society), the Dean Loda Mae Davis Endowed Scholarship Fund (est. 1982), and the Dean Loda Mae Davis Commencement Award (est. 1964).

More News March 19, 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 – Spring 2018

More News June 11, 2018

Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos had a wild idea in July 2017, but he didn’t know whether UCR had the resources he needed to bring his vision to life – until he found out about the Creat’R Lab.

It had opened its doors in Orbach Library only three months prior.

As a Researcher in UC Riverside’s Department of Earth Sciences, Kyriakopoulos typically works with numerical models on computer screens, but he wanted to make a 3D-model of California’s major earthquake faults to use as an outreach tool.

He believed that a tactile model would make his work more engaging, interactive and accessible to different types of audiences – from academic peers to elementary schoolchildren, government officials, and the visually impaired.

“It can be challenging for geophysicists to talk to everyday people about what we do,” Kyriakopoulos explained. “In order to do that better, it helps to be able to put our computer-based work into physical form.”

When he brought his idea to Michele Potter, Creat’R Lab’s 3D printing specialist, she was enthusiastic. “It involved a number of techniques and considerations we had never delved into before, and the educational application was so obvious,” she said. “This technology can teach people new concepts, partially by inspiring them to ask questions that they had never thought of before.”

“Michele was so helpful,” Kyriakopoulos said. “The Creat’R Lab is a great example of a well-organized space with an open doors policy, so easy to approach and so supportive.”

Kyriakopoulos and his 3D-printed model have had quite a busy year. “In nine months, we have brought the model to the general public, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting – the biggest geophysical conference in the world, the [Riverside] Long Night of Arts and Innovation, several outreach activities inside and outside UCR, and even a house committee meeting with legislators!” he said.

The model was featured at a congressional meeting on May 31, 2018 in Huntington Beach, where the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology (including Congress members Mark Takano, Dana Rohrabacher and Jerry McNerney) met to decide the fate of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).

“This may have helped significantly in giving arguments to Congress for increasing research funding for earth sciences,” said Michalis Faloutsos, UCR Director of Entrepreneurship.

“Christos’ model seems to have done for the Representatives what it has done for countless UCR and visiting students: showed them in a tangible way why we need to talk about earthquakes,” Potter added.

According to Kyriakopoulos, NEHRP is something that UCR should care about because data from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that the Southern California region has a 75% chance of seeing one or more major seismic events (an earthquake measuring 7.0 or higher) in the next 30 years – and Riverside is close to many of the most active and dangerous faults.

Kyriakopoulos’ office is now filled to the brim with 3D-printed models. His collection of fault displays has expanded to include a model of the subduction zone fault responsible for the M9 2011 Tohoku-oki event (Japan), the M7.2 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah (Baja California, Mexico) earthquake, the M7.8 2015 Gorkha (Nepal) earthquake. He also has small models of the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens, among others, which he plans to use for outreach.

“What Christos is doing is truly exciting, and the Creat’R lab has been crucial,” said David D. Oglesby, Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences and professor of geophysics.

Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos would like to recognize Kaitlin Chail (Director of Federal Relations at UCR) for organizing the participation at the Congressional Meeting in Huntington Beach.