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More News September 30, 2020

On Thursday, Oct. 8, the UCR Library will host an online event with special guest, award winning film and television writer and UC Riverside Professor Stu Krieger.

WHAT IF: Professor Stu Krieger and Professor Erith Jaffe-Berg discuss Krieger's counter-factual history novel THAT ONE CIGARETTE is the third installment of the Faculty Profiles in Research, Art & Innovation series. All members of the UC Riverside community and surrounding areas are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Stu Krieger is an acclaimed screen and television writer making his debut as a novelist with That One Cigarette. He is currently a professor of screen and television writing in the University of California, Riverside’s Department of Theatre, Film & Digital Production and in the Creative Writing for the Performing Arts MFA Program at UCR. Each fall, he also teaches the Producing the Screenplay class at USC’s Peter Stark MFA Producing Program.

Krieger co-wrote the Emmy award winning mini-series A Year in the Life and was nominated for a Humanitas Prize for co-writing the Disney Channel original movie, Going to the Mat.

Among his more than 25 produced credits, Krieger wrote the animated classic The Land Before Time for producers Steven Spielberg & George Lucas and ten original movies for the Disney Channel, including Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century and its two sequels, Tru Confessions, Smart House, Phantom of the Megaplex, and Cow Belles.

He has been a story editor and writer on Spielberg’s Amazing Stories and the supervising producer on the ABC Television series Jack’s Place. He served as the head writer and story editor of the animated preschool series Toot & Puddle on Nickelodeon in 2008-2009. Mr. Krieger’s TEDx Talk, “Choose Joy,” can be viewed here.

On April 22, 2017, Stu Krieger received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Screenwriting at the opening night gala of the 2017 Riverside International Film Festival.

That One Cigarette is a counterfactual history novel following four families from November of 1963 to January of 2009. It is a story of ordinary people making extraordinary ripples in the ocean of life.

In November ’63, Ed Callahan is an assistant manager at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. His promise to his wife to quit smoking as soon as he finishes the pack in his pocket ends up changing the course of events on November 22. The fallout of this action alters the lives of the Scott family in Rochester, New York, the Kaufman/Goldman family in Los Angeles and the extended Kashat family in Baghdad, Iraq.

It’s not until the final chapters that all of these lives intersect but along the way That One Cigarette explores questions of fate, love, loyalty and the ability of each of us to make defining contributions to our world by simply being present in our own lives.

Please RSVP in order to receive the link to join the livestream broadcast from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Oct. 8.

More dates for the series will be announced soon.

More News December 17, 2025

STEM Teaching Librarian Mary-Michelle Moore, housed in the UCR Library’s Teaching and Learning Department, plays a key role in helping STEM students build research and information literacy skills.

Need help refining a research question? Looking for the right STEM database? Stuck on citations or trying to learn Git or R? That's where Mary-Michelle Moore comes in. Since joining UCR Library as STEM Teaching Librarian in June 2024, she's been supporting students at every level, from foundational research skills to technical tools.

Mary-Michelle came to UCR from other UC and Cal State institutions, where she held various roles including a position at the UCLA Lab School, circulation coordinator, and a library liaison to the social sciences and STEM, among others. Her diverse background made her well-suited for interdisciplinary library work. "My undergrad is a Bachelor of Science in Archaeology, so I know a little bit of everything—bio, geology, chemistry—and I realized I really liked working with the sciences," she said. She later earned her MLIS from Rutgers University.

At UCR, Moore collaborates with colleagues to make the Library's STEM support more visible. She helped launch libstemteam@ucr.edu, a shared email where students and faculty can send any STEM questions without figuring out which librarian or staff member to contact. She also offers Lib STEM Team Office Hours during the quarter to assist graduate students and faculty.

Moore has planned creative engagement activities like a Pi Day spirograph event tied to mathematical patterns and an Ada Lovelace Day Wikipedia editing workshop highlighting women's contributions to computing. These activities reflect her goal of offering approachable, memorable experiences that bring students into the Library.

This fall, Mary-Michelle became the first librarian to teach UGRD 040, a new 2-unit course launched in fall 2025 and developed by the Library’s Teaching & Learning Department. Mary-Michelle’s inaugural course, Optimize Your Research Skills, was designed with undergraduate STEM students in mind. In the course, students explore scientific information, evaluate reports and government data, and prepare a final research poster. "I was so excited to get to do it first," she said.

Mary-Michelle is also a researcher herself, studying how students learn information literacy online and how librarians are portrayed in science fiction and fantasy. Her recent project analyzing Hugo Award–nominated works drew on materials from Special Collections & University Archives. Outside the Library, she combines conference travel with long-distance running, working toward completing a race in every state.

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How Mary-Michelle Can Help 

• Develop and focus research questions.
• Identify discipline-specific STEM databases.
• Offer guidance on citations and reference management.
• Support upper-division coursework, posters, and early research projects.
• Assist with tools related to Git, R, and Carpentries content.

Need STEM help? Contact Mary-Michelle at marymichelle.moore@ucr.edu or email the Lib STEM Team at libstemteam@ucr.edu.
 

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 June 16, 2021

A fall quarter 2020 library presentation inspired a current UC Riverside student to donate his personal book collection to Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).

On Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, Sandy Enriquez, Special Collections Public Services, Outreach & Community Engagement Librarian, and Andrew Lippert, Special Collections Processing Archivist, co-presented “On Slash Fanfiction and Yaoi Manga: Fandom and Sexuality in the Archives.”

During their presentation, Enriquez and Lippert gave a general introduction to the worlds of slash fanfiction and yaoi manga, also known as boys' love or BL; discussed how these items first arrived at the UCR Library and the emerging scholarship involving these important materials at UCR; and elucidated the reasons behind why the library hopes to collect more in the future.

“Slash and BL fandoms focus on romantic and/or sexual relationships between fictional male characters,” Enriquez explained. “Academic scholars have researched the impact and culture of slash and BL fandom for many years, but it wasn't until recently that they started incorporating a Feminist and Queer Theory lens to this research. From this lens, we now know that slash and BL fandoms are far more fluid and diverse than originally thought.”

The student donor, who wished to remain anonymous, shared what inspired him to gift his personal library to Special Collections: "I always thought that the history of our age would be written decades in the future, but attending a BL/slash event showed me that the work of analysis and preservation is happening now. That there was an enthusiastic community eager to delve into the whys and hows of something that has impacted my life. There are people that care enough about Boys Love and slash fiction to warrant a budding field of research. And I wanted to contribute to this wonderful project somehow, so I decided to make these books I've enjoyed available in the UCR Library."

According to Enriquez, other fans of slash or BL in the UC Riverside community are welcome to send their recommendations for this genre to SCUA staff at specialcollections@ucr.edu. “We hope to increase the BL manga collection at UCR and appreciate your suggestions,” she said.

The slash fanfiction and yaoi manga online event was co-sponsored by the UCR LGBT Resource Center and Asian Pacific Student Programs. Eighty-three members of the UCR community registered to attend. The replay is now available on the SCUA events page, along with other recent recordings of presentations by SCUA employees.

• Read more about Stress Relief Activities

More Past Exhibits March 23, 2023

Footsteps to You - Chattel Slavery

Ownership in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty of another.

1 : a piece of property (as animals, money, or goods) other than real estate

2 : Slave

“Publications and artifacts from the 1800s help us to obtain a greater insight and understanding of the institution of slavery in America as it relates to the growth and development of this country. These items can also help us to understand and appreciate the courage and strength millions of enslaved African men, women, and children had to possess in order to endure, overcome and fight against the physical and psychological terrors of slavery. It educates us on the tremendous abuses leveled on humans for over 300 years to build the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of this world.” - The Gore Collection

This exhibition of original artifacts from the collection of Jerry Gore encompasses a specific portion of the Era of Enslavement in the United States. It allows students to view up close documents such as tax receipts from the sale of human beings, wills passing property from one generation to the next, first edition slave narratives, and slave shackles. As we learn from the Gore Collection, curated by the Black Voice Foundation, we will ask several questions including: If presented with the opportunity, which side of history would you choose?

Historian Jerry Gore believed that “you can’t talk about the Underground Railroad without talking about slavery." His goal during the span of his career was to tell the most clear and concise vision of what slavery was all about so that visitors to his hometown of Maysville, Kentucky could better appreciate those pearls about people trying to make it to freedom. This partnership with the Black Voice Foundation (Gore Collection) and University of California, Riverside now brings these unique artifacts to the Inland Empire.
The Black Voice Foundation has hosted over 1400 educators on the Footsteps to Freedom tour where they have walked the steps of freedom seekers from the 1800s for more than 21 years. This experience allows you to look with empathy through the eyes of those who were on the historic journey of the Underground Railroad.

About the Foundation:

The Black Voice Foundation was founded in 1988 with a mission to train and educate individuals in print media. With the digital revolution, the rapid growth of technology in the world of communications and media, and the need to impact lives through a diverse set of multi media platforms; the foundation has expanded its mission to include a new set of projects in the area of education, professional development, history, and the arts.

University of California, Riverside

The Tomás Rivera Library serves as the main library of the campus providing access to materials in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Special Collections & University Archives house archives and manuscript collections, photographs, maps, books, and other rare or unique research material that document a wide range of subject areas. As a partner of the American Collections Advisory Board, UCR Library's has planned collaborative efforts to share, create, and sustain knowledge among ethnic groups whose history and experiences are woven into the fabric of the country.

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More News May 04, 2018

“One year after launch, we have been blown away by the energy, talent, and sheer diversity of projects displayed in the Creat’R Lab,” said Ann Frenkel, Deputy University Librarian.

On the evening of Thursday, May 3, Orbach Science Library hosted more than 90 guests who came to celebrate those successes and enjoy some birthday cake at the Creat’R Lab Anniversary Showcase.

In talking about the genesis for the Creat’R Lab, Frenkel remembered, “Our students kept emphasizing that there was no other independent, inclusive space on campus devoted to project making. They also wanted a place that would allow collaborators to find each other — to put artists together with engineers, social scientists, and scientists.”

So the UCR Library, in partnership with the Office of Research and Economic Development (RED), turned this vision into the Creat’R Lab, a living, state-of-the-art technology incubator for discovery, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Professors and students alike now call the Creat’R Lab “home” because it fosters experimentation and teamwork, according to Michalis Faloutsos, Director of Entrepreneurship at RED. “It’s also hosting some entrepreneurial activities of EPIC,” he said, referring to UC Riverside’s Entrepreneurial Proof of Concept and Innovation Center.

The showcase featured success stories from several Creat’R Lab users, including third-year Electrical Engineering student Gustavo Correa, whose Arduino electronics and programming workshops had such a high turnout that he had to move attendees to a larger room in Orbach Library to accommodate the class size.

Gender and sexuality studies professor Mzilikazi Koné described how her class collaborated with the Creat’R Lab on their zines project (hand-made magazines). “Zines are the ultimate project of creating something tactile, something you can pick up and pass around and marvel at,” Koné explained. “Zines center art and creativity as central to the project of learning – not as a side note. It is the front note.”

“My interaction with the Creat’R Lab generated a new world of amazing opportunities,” said earth sciences professor Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos of his project, which involved a 3D-printed model and a planned Virtual Reality model of California’s earthquake faults.

Each of the four panelists acknowledged the support and contributions of Creat'R Lab staff members Krista Ivy, maker services librarian, and Michele Potter, open research librarian.

Director of Research Services Brianna Marshall, who oversees the Creat’R Lab, announced the founding of a Steering Committee to engage student and faculty perspectives and provide guidance on future lab workshops, programming, staffing, space usage, equipment purchases, and program goals.

“I can’t overstate how excited we are for this new committee and the input and fresh ideas they’ll be bringing to the lab!” Marshall said.

Inaugural faculty and academic staff members of the Creat’R Lab Steering Committee include Konstantinos Karydis (Technology/Engineering), Haibo Liu (Social Sciences), Juliette Levy (Arts/Humanities), Christos Kyriakopolous (Science/Math), Michalis Faloutsos, Director of Entrepreneurship (RED), and Jay Gilberg (Entrepreneur in Residence, RED).

Student committee members are Patrick Le (ASUCR student representative) and Fahed Elkhatib (Technology / Engineering student representative). The Steering Committee intends to recruit three more student representatives. Any students interested in joining the Steering Committee should contact Brianna Marshall for more information.

More News June 23, 2021

UC Riverside’s second annual Juneteenth celebration took place June 15-18, 2021 -- but many may not know that a library employee spearheaded the genesis of this event.

“With knowledge comes power,” said Leslie Settle, Access Services Desk Coordinator. “I didn’t learn about Juneteenth until college because it’s not something we are taught in school. Once aware, I made an effort to ensure it was something I not only celebrated, but commemorated.” According to Settle, Juneteenth or Jubilee Day was widely celebrated in the late 1800s but was met with bloody violence by some who did not like that Black people were no longer enslaved. What was once a beautiful celebration became fearful and life-endangering.

Her passion and desire to educate others about the significance of Juneteenth inspired Leslie to chair the inaugural UCR Juneteenth celebration in 2020, to recognize the achievements and contributions of UCR’s Black faculty, staff, students, and alumni. “I knew our campus community was hurting, dealing with two pandemics, and it was important to bring UC together as a community and fellowship, celebrating our freedom and life.” She enlisted the Black Faculty and Staff Association (BFASA), African Student Programs (ASP), and the Black Alumni Chapter (BAC) as event partners.

On June 18, 2021, U.S. President Biden declared Juneteenth a Federal holiday and UC President Michael Drake added it to the University of California holiday calendar.

Leslie had campaigned for the last several years to achieve this goal. “Juneteenth being recognized as a Federal holiday was a breath of fresh air. I was so excited that after years, it finally happened,” Leslie said. “I know many people in my community felt like it was another way to satisfy ‘us’ with a symbolic victory rather than economic equity and real justice, but not me. This was a major accomplishment for me personally and I can still see the joy on my daughter's face when I told her what happened in our nation. This Federal recognition is the gateway to deal with our American past and push forward together as an American people. Juneteenth is not just a ‘Black’ holiday. It is a freedom holiday that all Americans should celebrate and enjoy together.”

For 2021, the Juneteenth Celebration expanded to a week-long online event, and another library employee, Rochelle Settle, volunteered to handle talent acquisition. “Juneteenth being recognized as a federal holiday is a step in a good direction. It recognizes my ancestor’s plight, struggle and emancipation from the horrors of slavery,” she said.

During the Juneteenth celebration, Leslie served as the Mistress of Ceremonies and Rochelle gave beautiful a cappella performances of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn composed in 1900 by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, and “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, written during the Civil Rights Era. Rochelle and Will Pines, disability specialist from the Academic Resource Center, coordinated the event speakers, including panelists Dr. Jamal Myrick, director of African Student Programs; Dr. Barry Settle from Allen Chapel AME in Riverside; Kristy J. Heisser, President and Founder of Malcolm’s Heart Inc.; Deidre Reyes, UCR Class of 2021 graduate; and keynote speaker Charles Lee-Johnson, assistant professor and chair of the Department of Social Work at California Baptist University. Several other UCR Library employees contributed to the Juneteenth kickoff event on June 16, a video tribute called Messages of Freedom.

“Living on the West Coast, this holiday was not always celebrated like it was in the south, so it is up to us to educate others,” Rochelle said. “I heard one African-American young woman say that she had never heard much about Juneteenth until this week-long event. I was so encouraged that all of us, collectively, were able to contribute to her and I’m sure many others (all races) in learning about this part of American history.”

During his keynote speech, Lee-Johnson spoke of how Juneteenth celebrations could create a ripple effect of positivity. “I believe participating in Juneteenth has given me a new insight on how I see and value others. My ripple effect will be to continue to acknowledge the accomplishments of all my coworkers, embrace fellowship with one another, and embrace our differences,” Leslie said. “I think in the end, this ripple will boost morale in the workplace and increase productivity. We are definitely stronger together.”

Rochelle added, “We will never know how far out those ripples will spread into the lives of UCR staff, faculty, and their circles. I thought it was a beautiful thing to witness people of all races, colors and backgrounds come together to celebrate Juneteenth.”

For those interested in learning more about Juneteenth, the library has many resources on the subject. Additionally, library staff and ASP collaborated last June to create a Black Lives Matter resource guide.

More News September 13, 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 the 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 - Fall 2018

University of California, Riverside Pesticide Waste Pits records (WRCA 280)

The UCR Pesticide Waste Pits records document some of the early agricultural research at the Citrus Experiment Station, prior to the founding of UCR, and the environmental remediation project of the Pesticide Waste Pits in the 1990s and early 2000s.

 

Nalo Hopkinson papers (MS 386)

Nalo Hopkinson is a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside and an award-winning Jamaican and Canadian science fiction & fantasy writer. She is a pioneering figure of the Afrofuturism and Alternative Futurism movements. This collection is focused on Hopkinson’s literary works and includes a number of manuscripts, publications from her tenures as an editor, and other materials associated with her activities in SF&F circles.

 

Robert V. Hine papers (UA 083)

Robert V. Hine was a founding professor of the University of California, Riverside in the History Department. This collection documents his work as a professor of history and his interests in the American frontier, borderlands, socialist cooperatives, and the Irvine Ranch. Also included in this collection are documents on the establishment of early humanities curriculum and academic senate records of UC Riverside.

 

Harriet E. Huntington papers (MS 221) – check catalog record for updated marc entry

This collection documents the work of children’s book author and photographer Harriet Huntington. Materials in the collection include photographs, negatives, and drafts of her works on topics including music, plants, animals, and the Yosemite Valley.

 

Sabino Osuna photographs (MS 028)

Sabino Osuna was a professional photographer in Mexico City during the early 20^th century. This collection of photographs represents his work documenting the Mexican Revolution, primarily between 1910 and 1914, and many of the images were published in a book titled: Mexico at the Hour of Combat: Sabino Osuna’s Photographs of the Mexican Revolution. This collection has also been digitized and is accessible on the California Digital Library.

 

Carobeth Laird papers (MS 109)

Carobeth Laird was an anthropologist, linguist, and ethnographer most known for her work studying the Chemehuevi people of southeastern California and western Arizona. Laird’s collection includes manuscripts, press clippings and other materials from her career working with the Chemehuevi. There are also materials from Lynn Laredo, the author of Laird’s documentary, as well as personal materials, including from her first marriage to the ethnologist John Peabody Harrington.

 

John Franceschina papers (MS 422)

The collection consists of materials from author and theater history scholar John Franceschina relating to two of his publications: Incidental and Dance Music in the American Theatre from 1786 to 1923, and Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire. Items in the collection include research files, musical scores, programs, photographs, news clippings, publications, and videos.

 

Loda Mae Davis papers (UA 082)

The Loda Mae Davis papers document the professional life of Loda Mae Davis, the first Dean of Women at UC Riverside. This collection also contains the records of the Loda Mae Davis women’s archives which conducted oral history interviews to document women in academia at UCR during the 20^th century.