On Saturday, April 20th from 5am to 1pm Pacific Time, the ASTM Compass platform will be performing systems maintenance which may cause an interruption in accessibility. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this interruption will create minimal disruption to our users’ research.
On Sunday, April 7th from midnight to 1am Pacific Time, ExLibris will be performing systems maintenance which may cause an interruption in online catalog services. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this interruption will create minimal disruption to our users’ research.
Please join us for our next author talk featuring Christina Lux.
Christina Lux, UC Merced’s Center for the Humanities Managing Director, will discuss her recent book War Bonds at the UC Merced Library’s next Faculty Author Series. Lux’s book of poetry inspired by archival materials of Chicago pianist and painter Edna Cookingham expresses themes of survival, conflict, rebuilding, and community.
Event Time: Noon - 1pm
Event Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024
Event Location: Kolligian Library Building, KL 232
Registration is encouraged as seating is limited. Light refreshments provided.
The first 5 registrants who also attend the event will receive a free copy of Christina Lux's book.
On Saturday, March 16th from 6am to 11am Pacific Time, IEEE Xplore will be performing systems maintenance which may cause an interruption in access to the database. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this interruption will create minimal disruption to our users’ research.
The Library is hiring a Graduate Summer Researcher to compile a reading list for a proposed UC Merced Community & Labor Center reading room during the summer term. This position is up to 50% and can be remote or in-person. More details can be found at the position description. Please apply soon!
Since 2017, the UC Merced Library has offered an award to undergraduate students who demonstrate excellence in library research and use. This year, the Carter Joseph Abrescy and Larry Kranich Library Award for Student Research Excellence was awarded to Ashley Ratcliff-Winn and Darian Andrade-Diaz.
Ashley Ratcliff-Winn is a 4th year psychology major currently in her last semester at UC Merced. During her time at UC Merced, she has spent many hours utilizing the many resources that the University Library has to offer. During her summer as a UROC-Humanities scholar, Ashley spent countless hours scouring library databases as well as using interlibrary loan services to gain access to original works that aided in her research projects focused on the cultural practices of Colombian and Venezuelan cattle herders. Ashley has recently published a literary review, “Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Nervios and other Psychological Disparities in Mexican Migrant Farm Workers” (2023).
Ashley is a member of Sigma Theta Psi Multicultural Sorority and president of the Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center Club. She also volunteers in the IMPACT Lab and the Kings County Public Health Department while finishing her undergraduate degree.
Ashley is looking forward to continuing her education and has applied to Fresno State’s Masters program and for a PhD program at UC Merced. She plans on becoming a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor after graduate school.
Darian Andrade-Diaz is a 4th year student, studying History with a minor in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. He is from East Palo Alto, California. Throughout the course “Topics in Regional or State History: Research” taught by Dr. David Rouff, Darian used the Sequoia and Kings Canyon (SEKI) National Parks archive, housed by the University Library, to create a narrative based on primary source readings. His paper, “Assimilating an Indigenous Perspective in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Parks,” uses historical context and evaluations of institutions to identify the incomplete transmission of information about the native people who inhabited the park. In his paper, Darian argues that the formation of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks occurred in an era when racism and xenophobia informed the perspectives of Americans. The educational materials created by the park administration and the practices of policies in that period reveal a pattern of active whitewashing of indigenous perspectives. Darian is looking forward to exploring the relationships between the National Park Service in California and the transmission of indigenous histories in graduate school.
Darian chose to attend UC Merced because of the unrivaled opportunities for undergraduate research provided at this institution. He is thankful to be able to take advantage of these great opportunities and advance in his pursuit of a Ph.D.
A public reception to honor the achievements of Ashley and Darian will take place on Friday, March 22, 2024, at 1:30pm on the third floor of the Library near the Four Seasons of Yosemite stained glass murals. All are welcome to attend.
On behalf of the University Library and the Abrescy, Breland and Kranich families, many thanks to Award committee members and all in the Library for their hard work and commitment to student success!
Beginning at 2pm Pacific Time on Friday March 1st, the Fulcrum platform will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance. The outage is expected to last approximately 3 hours and may affect access to ACLS Humanities Ebooks and University of Michigan Ebook collections. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this interruption will create minimal disruption to our users’ research.
Library staff recently recognized Chief Administrative Officer, Stephanie Peterson for her 10-year anniversary at the UC Merced Library. However, Stephanie’s history with the university is much deeper and longer than most of ours. She has been at UC Merced for 24 years!
I originally moved to Merced when I was 11 years old and lived here through my sophomore year at Merced College, then went to CSU Sacramento for my Bachelor’s degree. After 8 years in the legal field as a paralegal, I returned to Merced in 1999 to be closer to family and found an admin job with the local medical society. However, growing up with parents who both worked for a large corporation, I was drawn to positions at larger institutions and was excited to learn about UC’s interest in Merced. In January 2000, I was hired as the campus receptionist and was the first face people saw at our first local location on Olive Avenue before later relocating to Castle, Mondo and then to campus.
After eight months as the campus receptionist, I had the distinct honor of working two years directly with founding Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey (CTK). I then worked as the executive assistant for founding EVC/Provost David Ashley for four years before joining the Academic Personnel Office for seven years as an Analyst and then Management Services Officer (MSO). This final position, before starting with the Library, provided valuable experience in procurement, finance, budgets, and personnel as I supported various departments under the Provost division, including Academic Affairs, Academic Senate, Institutional Planning & Analysis, International Affairs, Assessment Office, and Fresno Center.
In those early days there was a lot of excitement and energy and you never knew what tasks would land on your desk for that day. Which local, state, federal or UC official would be calling that day or walking through the door? I wore several hats as a facilities person, locksmith, event coordinator, phone expert, purchaser, taxi driver, tour guide… Some days I’d be out buying light bulbs for the office, getting keys copied, picking up food/drinks for the endless meetings, troubleshooting phone problems, ordering china, houseware or even firewood for the Chancellor’s residence or picking up candidates from the Merced airport and taking them on a Lake Road drive-by of an imaginary campus. Other duties as assigned was 100% of your job.
Most memorable were the fun staff events at Castle which included Halloween (Chancellor CTK’s favorite – dress-up was practically mandatory) and Christmas parties as well as Friday afternoon hockey games. Chancellor CTK would walk through the halls encouraging staff to join the hockey games in the parking lot; we’d grab the mint tin “hockey pucks” and some hockey sticks for some laughs, fun, and stress relief. We were all paving the way in our jobs, navigating so many unknowns, while balancing excitement and exhaustion, and she knew how to lighten our loads and encourage teamwork, if just for a few minutes of activity and fun.
While I started my employment as an entry level Admin Asst I and advanced through the AA, Specialist, Analyst and MSO titles, my UC experience started at the top in the Chancellor’s office, Provost Office, Academic Affairs, etc. After 13 years of working in central administrative departments and obtaining a vast amount of opportunities and experience, I was interested in gaining a departmental perspective while continuing my MSO experience. I had served as budget liaison in the Provost Office which had departments, including the Library, reporting directly to it. Working with both MSO Joy Parham and AUL of Operations Eric Scott had sparked my interest in working more closely with students and librarians.
Four big surprises about the Library that I learned in my initial weeks were: 1) librarians are academic and not staff positions and they go through a detailed review process; 2) the term “Collections” is not the accounts payable term of collecting on past debts but rather the process of collecting all types of print and electronic resources and access for campus users to enhance their research and learning; 3) Library is responsible for maintaining its own building and funding space/furniture changes and upgrades; and 4) Library’s strong emphasis on customer service through its staff and student employees to assist all patrons, including faculty, staff, students and the public.
My position has certainly evolved through the years. When I started at the Library, I was the procurement, travel, financial and personnel processor for the department as well as the Executive Assistant to the Interim University Librarian. Now, we’ve grown to a team of four and have increasing responsibilities such as managing the librarian review process, recruitment and event support, financial and budget management of state funds as well as grants, gifts, contracts, recharges, endowments, etc. and so much more.
As the Library Chief Administrative Officer, I oversee our Administrative Services team which supports all seven units in the Library, including 30+ staff and 40+ student employees. A typical day includes questions, emails, approvals, meetings related to procedures, finances/budgets, procurement, events, travel, and human resources. We often re-evaluate ways to improve processes to work smarter, not harder. But some days, I never get to check off any items on my own to-do list!
I enjoy the variety of work and working with all the Library staff – the interactions, support, professionalism, learning something new about each unit. Library is comprised of many important units and working with them, providing them with the administrative and financial support they need to help achieve their goals and contribute to Library’s mission and success is rewarding.
There’s so much we all want to do and just not enough people, resources, funding or time to get it done. It’s challenging to identify and prioritize the most important items because all our units provide resources and services that assist and directly benefit all campus users and beyond to the community, other UCs, universities and more. Change management is a huge challenge for my specific unit. Information and processes are constantly changing, and it can be overwhelming and exhausting in trying to keep up and manage it all.
Over the past five years, the University of California has established agreements with more than a dozen journal publishers that provide funding support for open access publishing in addition to reading access. Each of these agreements advances two fundamental priorities for the university: fiscal responsibility and the goal of making UC research freely available to the public. UC is currently in negotiations with Taylor & Francis to achieve a similar agreement.
Many of UC’s initial open access agreements were with STEM-focused publishers, and the UC libraries are working to extend these benefits to the humanities and social sciences, as well — disciplines in which Taylor & Francis is a significant publisher.
However, Taylor & Francis has proposed adding open access publishing costs on top of subscription fees for the same journals — a “double-dipping” tactic the UC Academic Senate has explicitly taken a stand against. Unfortunately, Taylor & Francis has so far been unwilling to consider an agreement that redirects the university’s spend from reading to open access publishing, as many other publishers have done.
While our previous contract ended on December 31, 2023, contract negotiations routinely continue into the next calendar year without any immediate interruption to journal content access, and so far, that is the case here. We are hopeful that the negotiations with Taylor & Francis will reach a successful resolution soon. That said, if we are unable to reach an agreement by March 31, we may lose direct access to 2024 articles through the Taylor & Francis Online platform.
The UC Libraries are preparing to provide UC scholars with access to needed articles with minimal disruption or delay, regardless of what happens with the negotiations — just as we have done successfully in the past when we were out of contract with a journal publisher for a period of time.
We will provide an update as soon as there is news to share on the progress of the negotiations. In the meantime, please feel free to email us with any questions you may have.
Thank you!
Letter sent to All Faculty from Christopher Ojeda, Chair of LASC and Haipeng Li, University Librarian
Thursday, February 22, 2024
The LTI to make UC Merced Library research guides visible to students in CatCourses has been upgraded. Please use the “Library Research Guide” page (formerly “Start Your Research”), found in your CatCourses site to display Subject or Course research guides. To add this page to your course site, go to Settings > Navigation > enable the Library Research Guide page. If there is an existing research guide for your course, it will automatically embed there.
Please use this form if you would like a custom-built course research guide. For questions, contact your library liaison.
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