Calisphere now includes over 2 million digital primary sources from 300+ organizations in the State of California! Calisphere's collections include those digitized at the UC Merced Library including the UC Cooperative Extension Archive, Ernest Lowe Photography Collection, and Dunya Ramicova Costume Design Collection. See Special Collections & Archives. 

As part of the celebration, the California Digital Library has created free virtual backgrounds from selected images in Calisphere. See the full press release below from CDL. 

Calisphere soars past two million digital primary resource items!

Special Collections

We are delighted to announce that Calisphere now provides access to over two million historical images, texts, recordings, and other primary resources from the state of California’s remarkable digital collections. Explore early maps of the world; photographs from historical newspapers; paintings reflecting periods of cultural significance; personal journals and diaries charting new frontiers; political posters calling for decades of social and political change; and interviews with and oral histories of the citizens of this state. Visit Calisphere to access this openly-available, statewide aggregation of digitized resources from over 300 participating institutions and delve into the stories that have shaped California throughout its history.

We would like to express our gratitude to our partner organizations throughout California–libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural heritage organizations–for their ongoing participation in contributing content that helps shape Calisphere as a valuable public resource for teaching and learning. Learn more about the shared commitments, values, and community practices that guide us and our contributing partner organizations.

And stay tuned for additional news and updates as the breadth and depth of this statewide aggregation continues to grow.

Celebrate with us!

We’re celebrating this significant milestone with a collection of free “virtual meeting” backgrounds to share with colleagues, students, researchers, and friends. Choose from a variety of iconic, historical, or whimsical images to set as your virtual meeting background.

People riding in a Stella Lake Stage, operated by Washburn Stage Line, Wawona, California, 1890. Image courtesy: California Historical Society and University of Southern California Digital Library.

B.F. Conaway photograph of beach goers at Newport Beach, 1889. Image courtesy: California State University, Fullerton, University Archives and Special Collections.

Postcard of Camping in the Redwoods, Alma, California, 1900-1910. Image courtesy: San José Public Library, California Room.

Transportation to Inter-County Walnut Growers’ Field Day, 1927-09-03. Image courtesy: UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive.

Feel free to download the images and use them as meeting backgrounds. 

Check out our outreach tips and tools for sharing Calisphere with others, including a new embeddable video resource.

Thank you

The magnitude of this ever-growing collection was made possible by a multi-year grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services funds under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Administered in California by the State Librarian, this financial support has enabled us to explore and quickly harvest new digital collections from across the state.

We also thank California Revealed, a California State Library initiative to help California’s public libraries and local heritage groups digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials (books, newspapers, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and more) that expand our understanding of the history of the Golden State.

Last month, I introduced the history of the development of the Merced County Farm Bureau as documented in the early reports of the county agent. These reports, as well as historical photographs, are now freely available in digital form through Calisphere. Working alongside the county agent was a home demonstration agent who was responsible for organizing activities to solve problems and improve practices which affected “physically, socially, or economically the homes of the community.” In December 1920, after her first year in the county, agent Mary Van Camp reported that fifteen centers had been organized in the county with a membership of 401 women engaged in a program of work for each farm home department center. 

What is striking to me about her report is the consistent emphasis on the development of local leaders. It was up to each center to decide what problems they wanted to raise attention to and promote training to address. Across the county, the “problems” identified were clothing, food, and improved health and sanitation. While the agent’s role was to advise and provide demonstrations, she describes her role as putting “as much confidence in the ability of the local leader as she could[,] checking methods when undesirable and praising where methods used were good.” That speaks volumes about the spirit behind Cooperative Extension and its approach. “It is interesting to note,” Van Camp writes, “that each different leader is planning the work as best fits her environment.” Her report records insights into the different needs of each community, how sharing models and practices can inspire local initiatives, and how to best foster and support locally-led problem solving.

The Start of School Hot Lunches

After a child feeding demonstration was conducted in a one room rural school in Livingston, local leadership organized to improve the school lunch situation. Teachers, a local nurse and physician, as well as the county superintendent of schools, worked together to introduce hot lunches and improve sanitation at the schools. With a number of photographs, Van Camp makes the point that children no longer needed to sit on the ground outside to eat their lunches. Instead, in cold weather children were served a hot dish, and “pupils mob the home demonstration agent on the road to tell her they have gained a pound.”

Food Preservation and Clothing Techniques

We may not have expected that 2020 would bring a renewed interest in canning (news reports have noted shortages in canning supplies) as well as other at-home activities such as sewing and knitting. A hundred years ago, home demonstration agents played a key role in showing homemakers how to safely preserve food and how to make their own clothing efficiently. That knowledge would become even more valuable as communities later weathered the Great Depression and shortages during the Second World War.

Van Camp reports on demonstrations on “cold pack sterilization, pressure cooker, water bath and steam bath” methods for canning vegetables and meats. A Mrs. L’Hommadieu of Stevinson even hosted a demonstration at her home on the use of a canning retort, where a 35 lb. pig was preserved alongside eight quarts of beans. 

In another photograph in the report, she depicts a project leader demonstrating how to alter dress forms for clothing. A blur of movement in the foreground of the photo are the toddlers in the room watching as well.

For those interested in learning more about the history of canning techniques, the National Agricultural Library has a wonderful digital exhibit on The Evolution of Home Canning Practices. 

This spring, the UC Merced Library is teaming up with Merced 4-H to inspire local youth to create their own digital exhibits and tell their own local stories. We are accepting registration for a county-wide project to begin in January. Students 8th grade and up will learn to use digital archives, Arc GIS Story Map software, and other digital tools. We are excited to see what students come up with and what histories they uncover!

This article was published in the December 2020 issue of the Merced County Farm News.

The UC Merced Library is involved in an ongoing project to digitize approximately 2,000 illustrations of costume designs by School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts Professor Dunya Ramicova.

Research Week - Research Data Events sponsored by the Library

 The San Diego Supercomputer Center will be here to talk about their great tools for research data:

     
Looking for an inexpensive place to store your data or need a computing cluster for crunching data? The SDSC will be here to talk about their resources on March 5th from 12:00 - 3:00 in KL 260:

• Overview of SDSC services and resources from 12:00 - 1:00

• In depth discussion on HPC Compute resources from 1:00 - 2:00

• SDSC Data Management and Cloud Storage Services presentation from 2:00 - 3:00

Feel free to attend any or all sessions at the library (KL 260) on March 5th to learn more about these great research data solutions.

***Refreshments will be provided.***

For questions or to RSVP (no required but appreciated) please contact Susan Borda at sborda@ucmerced.edu

I look forward to seeing you there!