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The UCR Library serves as an information commons and intellectual center for the campus and is the nexus for research and study at UCR.
OverDrive expands: read leisure and academic magazines
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.
Jing Han
Reporting to the Director of Research Services, Jing is the driving force behind UCR Library's Digital Scholarship Program to support campus research and teaching through interdisciplinary collaboration on cutting-edge projects in Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM.
Digital Scholarship Librarian
Books the Size of Your Fingernail
Bring your best pair of reading glasses – you’ll need them.
The University of California, Riverside Library will host “The Magic of Miniature Books” exhibit Jan. 18 through March 30.
“Miniature books have a long and interesting history, with the earliest miniatures created approximately 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia,” said Cherry Williams, the director of Distinctive Collections at UCR Libraries. “The books have been popular throughout history, being recognized early on as a format that can be effortlessly carried about, hung from a belt or even easily concealed.”
By the 19th and 20th centuries, Williams said, books from nearly every genre were available as miniatures. These genres included classic fiction, artists’ books, dictionaries, almanacs, Bibles and prayer books, children’s books and non-fiction works such as fishing guides.
The exhibit has two components. The first features about 30 miniature books from the Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) section of the Tomas Rivera Library. Books featured vary from tiny volumes of novels such as, “The Cat Who Loved Christmas,” to a copy of "The Lord's Prayer" that is smaller than your pinky fingernail, to a miniature version of Thomas More’s “Utopia” that measures about 2 by 3 inches.
Some of the other books on display include “Jack be Nimble and Other Rhymes,” printed in 1987, and “El Libro de la Misa Para uso de la Incancia,” a Catholic service book printed in Spanish from 1861.
“As a result of putting these items on display, we hope that our viewers will return often to visit Special Collections at a future date, and discover additional interesting materials available for their use in the SCUA reading room,” Williams said.
The second component is a traveling exhibit UCR is hosting on behalf of the Miniature Book Society (MBS). MBS is an international organization that works to sustain an interest in miniature books.
Williams said the traveling exhibit highlights winners of the annual MBS competition, and showcases modern masterpieces and historic examples of miniature books. Williams hopes the traveling component promotes MBS grant opportunities, which enable students to pursue study in miniature books.
“The Magic of Miniature Books” traveling exhibit will be on display on the first floor of the Rivera Library, while the display of selected items from SCUA will be available on the 4th floor of the Rivera Library in the Special Collections reading room. For more information, contact Cherry Williams.
Rivera Library Lounge
Type
- Public Use
Capacity
- Up to 17 people
The Rivera first floor lounge area is a social space with a mix of soft seating with cafe tables and chairs.
3D-printed earthquake fault model “shakes” up Congressional meeting
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.
Dexter Thomas Jr. Collection of Japanese Hip Hop
Located in: Tomás Rivera Library
The Dexter Thomas Jr. Collection of Japanese Hip Hop is a collection of nearly 600 items, in both Japanese and English, on Hip Hop culture in Japan that Thomas compiled over several years while conducting research in this area. The collection primarily consists of compact disc recordings from Japanese Hip Hop artists, but also includes manga, magazines, and other materials pertaining to Japanese Hip Hop culture.
In case you missed it: summer and fall online resource acquisitions
The UCR Library acquired an array of online resources in the summer and fall of 2021 that include a variety of full text journals, magazine collections, and primary source collections.
Read below for a summary of some of our major summer and fall online resource acquisitions.
Emerald Insight
The Emerald eJournal Premier collection from Emerald Insight includes more than 300,000 full-text articles from 322 journals covering business, science & technology, engineering, social sciences, healthcare, public policy, and library science. Emerald Publishing journals are double-blind peer-reviewed and reflect Emerald’s mission to inspire positive change in society and addresses real-world problems.
Art Magazine Archives
Art Magazine Collection Archive from Ebsco presents a collection of three leading art magazines — The Magazine ANTIQUES, ARTnews and Art in America — covering contemporary art, visual art, fine arts and more. Research areas represented in these magazines include ancient art, architecture, art preservation, and contemporary art. Articles and cover pages are fully indexed and advertisements are individually identified, making this a valuable resource for those studying visual arts, art history, and culture.
The Artforum
The Artforum (later Artforum International) archive from ProQuest is the digitized version of the leading magazine for coverage of contemporary international art, with content dating back to the magazine’s first issue in 1962 through 2020. Artforum covers art in all media, from painting, sculpture, and installations, to body art video & audio art, and performance art. Also covered are related topics such as architecture, film, fashion, music, and photography.
East India Company Archives: India Office Records from the British Library, 1599-1947
The East India Company archives from Adam Matthew Digital offers access to a unique collection covering the entirety of classes IOR/A, B, C, D, E and G of the India Office Records held at the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947. For an overview of what is included in the archive, click here.
These resources are available to UCR faculty, students, and researchers. We hope to share news of more resource acquisitions available to the UCR community in 2022.