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More News May 25, 2018

As the second-largest student employer on campus, each spring the UCR Library takes time to celebrate the students who comprise half of our staff team.

At the 2018 Student Employee and Staff Appreciation Luncheon held in the lower courtyard at Rivera Library, we also recognized these 27 library student employees who will graduate with UC Riverside’s Class of 2018: Majany Alcantar, Abigail Arreola, Anastacia Azor, Adrian Barragan, Henry Cho, Jessica Reyes Flores, Alondra Gomez-Andrade, Candice Kim, Joyce Kim, Hayden Jackson, Mohamed Jawara, Dana Jee, Eli Labinger, Stephanie Lim, Leilani Lopez, KaJuan Matthews, Samantha Oh, Melinda Pho, Rebecca Raven, Ricardo (Ricky) Rios, David Roualdes, Nicole Prado, Mary Sarchizian, Abigail (Abby) Siegel, Samuel Tang, Hogan Tran, and Kiara Wright.

We asked our 2018 graduates to share their favorite memories from their time spent working at the UCR Library, and what they would miss most about working here. Here are some of their responses:

“My favorite memory from working at the library is seeing Scotty and getting free snacks during midterms week. What I will miss most about working at the library is not seeing all the people that I have gotten to know these past four years while working here.” – Joyce Kim

“Both my favorite memory and the aspect about working in the library I'm going to miss most have to do with my coworkers. I've met the most amazing people in Special Collections and I can confidently say that I have best friends I would have never met if it weren't for the library. I'm lucky enough to have found someone from my hometown, but those I'm leaving behind will be sincerely missed! With my brother starting his college adventure in Southern California, I'm excited to say that I hope to return for a visit soon.” – Leilani Lopez

“My favorite memory from working at the library was the many student appreciation events that I had the opportunity to experience. I felt that my work at the library was valued and that motivated me to go the extra mile to provide the best customer service possible to our library patrons. I will miss the family-like bond that I have been able to sustain with my fellow coworkers and supervisors at the library. There is a sense of teamwork and belonging among other library staffs and coworkers that is very refreshing, and I will be missing that tremendously.” – Mohamed Jawara

“My favorite memories are going to be the night shifts with LSM [Library Security Monitors]. I always was a night owl and it was kind of funny to get my mind off finals. I am going to miss everyone I got to work with. Whether it be in the break room at Orbach or in the back room in Rivera, it was always a pleasure to just small talk with other workers. The work environment has always been something I loved about this job and I'm going to miss it.” – Ricky Rios

“What I will miss most about working at the library would be the flexibility of schedule here. I know once I enter a different job outside of UCR it’ll be hard to have a flexible work schedule, but I am grateful that UCR Library provided me with a flexible schedule so I can manage my class schedule and family.” – Majany Alcantar

“I enjoyed scripting a streamlined process for imaging patron computers, which we have been using for a couple years now. It was a fun learning experience that I was able to apply immediately. I will miss the flexible hours and friendliness of the library staff.” – Sam Tang

“I'll carry with me so many wonderful memories from my time at the library, mostly because of the wonderful people and environment I worked in.  I learned so much from my supervisor (shout out to amazing Wendy), and other co-workers. The experience I gained working at the library will be invaluable in the next step of my journey.” – Nicole Prado

“I'll most miss the feeling of having found a patron exactly what they need. It's just a great feeling knowing that you were the one who got someone exactly the thing they needed to finish that assignment or to complete their research.” - Hayden Jackson

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More News August 25, 2017

When Calisphere released the online gallery of 5,933 recently digitized photos from the Jay Kay Klein photographs and papers on science fiction fandom last week, the UCR Library’s team was thrilled with the rapid response of the science fiction fan community.

Within 15 hours of publication, chats about the images lit up fan blogs, including Mike Glyer’s site, File770.

A science fiction fan, Klein photographed many events during the 1960s and 1970s, including “Worldcon.” Klein donated these photographs, which were part of his $3.5 million estate, to the UCR Library in 2014.

“We’re a large but tight-knit community and we love our history,” said David M. Stein. “Since this archive went live, we've been pointing out images, lots of ‘OH MY, that's <so-and-so>,’ and ‘Hey Anne, were you ever THAT young?’”

Some fans were understandably frustrated that individuals were misidentified in some of the picture captions, but the overwhelming majority were delighted as they found many familiar faces and fond memories among the sea of photos.

Library staff received emails from many fans, graciously offering to provide additional information about the people and events pictured “before all those who attended the conventions have shuffled off this mortal coil,” as Maggie Thompson so aptly stated.

“NYCon III was my first world convention,” wrote John-Henri Holmberg. “I'm amused to more or less recognize my youthful self in a few of Jay Kay Klein's photos.”

JJ Jacobson, the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, has had many conversations with fans about the photos since the gallery went up on Calisphere. “We knew there were flaws,” she commented. “We also knew it would be possible to crowdsource, but we had no idea that the SF community would be so magnificently generous. We weren’t ready for the flood, but we’re ecstatic that it’s happening.”

To give perspective on the “flood,” Digital Initiatives Program Manager Eric Milenkiewicz shared these statistics:  In the last week of August, UCR collections on Calisphere received 33,557 pageviews (25,407 unique), which is far beyond those received in a typical week.

“The impact that this collection has had thus far is remarkable,” Milenkiewicz added. “Our pageview statistics on Calisphere have just soared over the past seven days, with much of this traffic attributed to the Klein photos!”

Glyer has generously offered to use File770 to help spread the word among the Science Fiction community about how fans can submit corrections to the photo captions.

“We knew there were some issues with the metadata before we put it up,” explained Cherry Williams, Director of Distinctive Collections. “But what’s important to us is that this is a vibrant, living project that’s going to continue to move and breathe and evolve.”

Fans who want to contribute corrections and/or enhancements for the Klein photo captions can submit them through this form, which was created for this project by Digital Assets Metadata Librarian, Noah Geraci.

Jacobson offers one word of caution to those who wish to help with the metadata corrections: “It will not show up immediately [on Calisphere] because we need to validate, in case two different people give us conflicting information.”

Williams, Jacobson, Milenkiewicz, and Geraci are already thinking ahead to how the library can improve the integration of crowdsourced metadata in the future, as there are more than 55,000 of Klein’s images that have not yet been digitized.

“I knew Jay Kay Klein back in the day (and may appear in some of his photos),” Dennis McCunney commented via email. “I think he'd be delighted at the response to his work.  I certainly am.”

This project will continue to grow, but it would not be possible without financial donations. Should you feel inspired to support the digitization of more of Klein’s photographs, please contact Jernine McBride, Associate Director of Development for the UCR Library, to discuss how you can help to move this project forward.

More News May 06, 2019

During winter quarter 2019, the UCR Library collaborated on a survey with ASUCR and their Student Voice Committee to learn how we can improve students’ academic experience.

463 undergraduate and graduate students participated in the survey and identified these top five obstacles to student success at UC Riverside:

1)      Difficult classes (32%)

2)      Time management (25%)

3)      Cost of textbooks (15%)

4)      Lack of study spaces (8%)

5)      Not owning a laptop (4%)

The UCR Library and its partners directly address three of these challenges:

Cost of textbooks:        Library course reserves and the Affordable Course Materials Initiative (ACMI) can help offset the high cost of textbooks.

Lack of study spaces:         Both Rivera and Orbach Libraries provide a variety of study rooms that students can reserve online, including the recently updated and soundproof David W. Musso Quiet Study Rooms.

Not owning a laptop:         Students can borrow a laptop from one of the new ITS-managed Laptops Anytime self-service kiosks in the Rivera and Orbach libraries, or check out a laptop from the Circulation / Reserves Desks.

The library also offers some support to address students’ two most pressing challenges – difficult classes and time management.

Difficult classes:

• Make an appointment with a librarian to request individual research assistance.
• In-class presentations to find and use research resources, and gain expertise on digital tools and technologies. Students can suggest that their instructors contact the library directly to request this service.

Time management:

• The library offers workshops every quarter on a variety of time-saving topics, including citation management and other research tools and techniques.
• Individual how-to consultations on digital tools or other technology: use the ‘Ask Us’ button on the library’s homepage to find a library consultant, or visit one of the Info Desks for general questions and guidance.

If students feel stressed by their academic challenges, the library offers stress-relieving resources, too:

• Visit the Creat’R Lab in Orbach Library to make something fun and creative.
• Open up a Rivera Library maker box to color, play with Legos, or make other crafts.

The library’s staff are its greatest resource to assist students with their most pressing concerns. “Librarians and their individual expertise can be extremely helpful,” said Dani Cook, UCR Library’s Director of Teaching & Learning.

Those who are interested in offering philanthropic support for student success at UC Riverside are encouraged to speak with Jernine McBride, Associate Director of Development, to learn more about the UCR Library's Student Success Fund.

• Read more about Vietnam & Southeast Asian Studies

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More News May 08, 2019

Volunteers at Riverside National Cemetery’s annual “A Flag for Every Hero” event on Memorial Day weekend 2019 can now read biographies for many of the Veterans whose graves they adorn with flags, thanks in part to the work of two UCR Library employees.

When UC Riverside partnered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration’s Veterans Legacy Program on a multi-year, federally-commissioned project called Along the Chaparral: Memorializing the Enshrined, Principal Investigator Allison Hedge Coke asked Data Librarian Kat Koziar to build the foundation for the project’s data management, and Special Research Projects Director David Rios to assist with local history and archival genealogical research.

Project funding comes from contracts totaling nearly $700,000 over three years, beginning on Feb. 27, 2018.

“It’s important that we recognize that people who served in the military who are interred in RNC – that they had a life beyond the military – and that’s what we’re trying to capture,” Koziar said.

“It was a project that mattered to me,” Hedge Coke explained, because it blends creative writing, local history, archival research, digital media, geospatial resources, and more. “You don’t create a project to push your agenda into the community. You fashion a project to fit what already exists there.”

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Veteran population in California in 2016 was 1.74 million, the highest of all 50 states; and 131,000 Veterans resided in Riverside County. Those are among the reasons why Hedge Coke believed that the project’s aim and impact would be deeply meaningful to this community.

Hedge Coke’s project proposal intended to create an interactive GIS (geospatial information systems) application so that visitors or researchers could discover the life stories of the Veterans interred at RNC, which would be written by participating K-12 students. GIS consultant Mike Cohen developed the GIS application, which launched at the Closing Celebration on Nov. 29, 2018. The project also generated nine documentary films.

When Hedge Coke visited the RNC site with Koziar she was convinced that, with Koziar’s expertise and with UCR’s on-campus research libraries, they would be able to accomplish this colossal task.

“A lot of people have done work on this – but the base is the base, to give credit where it’s due,” Hedge Coke said. “Everything could not operate without the work that Kat put into it.”

Koziar created and runs the foundational hub of the project, on which everything else continues to expand, Hedge Coke explained. “Everything is semi-reliant – if not completely reliant – on that hub. We absolutely have to have that base to make a project of this breadth successful. It’s quite a bit of exemplary work from this brilliant woman.”

Koziar designed a filing and labeling system to allow the graduate fellows to claim particular people so they could divide up the work while avoiding duplicate efforts, and then to give K-12 students access to basic information about the interred for their research while writing the memorials. “The majority of the students working on this – they’re not data scientists, they’re in humanities,” she said. “I was able to teach some of these other skills because, even if they don’t think about it explicitly, they still have to use it. I enjoyed that.”

To assist with the project, Koziar recruited Rios for his expertise in local history, genealogical research, and his work with Inland Empire Memories -- a fledgling local cultural heritage collaboration; and Brian Geiger from the CHASS Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research.

Geiger helped tremendously because of his connection to the California Digital Newspaper Collection, which the students relied upon significantly while researching, Koziar said.

Hedge Coke acknowledged that Rios and Geiger have done a phenomenal job teaching the graduate fellows and K-12 students about local history, historical research, and where to find archives to learn more about the lives of the interred.

“The children are learning about some of the people who were little-known soldiers,” Rios said. “It gives them an idea of the sacrifices that people have made, and that it’s not just one particular group of people – it’s a wide variety. It’s great because this is Inland Empire Memories and that’s what our responsibilities are: to share resources about the history of people in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.”

The team dedicated to Along the Chaparral has included 75 adults and 2700 K-12 students to write the biographies – from Riverside Unified School District, Sherman Indian High School, Highland Academy in Beaumont, and other schools in Anza and Temecula. At times, up to one-third of the students in a class have discovered they were related to the person they were assigned to research, Hedge Coke said.

The Veterans Legacy program has created partnerships with nine universities across the country. “Our partnership with UC Riverside is one of our largest and our most dynamic,” said Bryce Carpenter, Program Manager for the Veterans Legacy Program. “I think it’s going to raise the bar for all future Veterans Legacy program partnerships.”

The Along the Chaparral team is developing a curriculum so that this project can be duplicated for other Veterans’ cemeteries with K-12 students nationwide, Koziar said.

To date, the students have published more than 500 life stories on the app. Considering the involvement with research, with story craft, with innovative digital platforms, and with K-12 students creating publishable work that heightens memorialization of these lives, the future impact of the project with K-12 students and teachers, UCR students and community, the city, county, Riverside National Cemetery and the greater region is truly immeasurable.

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