The start date for the NIH revised Public Access Policy is now July 1, 2025 (moved up from December 31, 2025). The changes for authors with publications based on NIH-funded research include the discontinuation of embargoes and the timing of deposit to PubMed Central. 

Key points about these changes for authors:

• Article acceptance: This policy applies based on the date that your manuscript is accepted by a journal, rather than the date you received NIH funding. Any manuscript accepted by a journal on or after July 1, resulting in whole or in part from funding by NIH, will fall under this revised policy.
   
• Open access requirement: Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) for NIH-funded research must be made publicly available in PubMed Central as the 12-month embargo is no longer an option from July 1 onward. The NIH Public Access Policy "requires Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication in a journal, on or after July 1, 2025, to be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication, for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication."
   
• Publication costs: Paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access on a journal publisher's site does not fulfill these new NIH requirements; authors must deposit in PubMed Central to comply.
  
  If an author chooses to publish with a journal that assesses APCs, reasonable publication costs may be covered by NIH funds, and/or UC Libraries offer support for publication costs with select publishers. UC authors can utilize the Journal Open Access Lookup Tool to determine whether a journal is covered and the amount of support available.
   
• Rights: By accepting NIH funding, authors grant NIH nonexclusive rights to use their manuscripts for federal purposes, including making manuscripts publicly available in PubMed Central. Authors also agree to a submission statement when depositing manuscripts in PubMed Central. Additionally, NIH encourages authors to let publishers and journals know that their research is part of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy by including the NIH Rights Statement and disclaimer in their manuscript.
   
• Data: The new policy applies only to publications. Data sharing requirements have not changed and continue to fall under the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.

Please reach out to the University Library for any questions about open access publishing. For questions about specific award terms and policy compliance, please reach out to your OSP contact.
 

The University Library is thrilled to announce the 2025 Open and Equitable Course Material Community of Practice. As part of the Community of Practice, four faculty members are partnering with the library to replace one module or section of their course with an existing Open Educational Resource (OER) which they will customize using an equity lens. The Teaching and Learning Center has also provided course design expertise to the Community of Practice. Participating faculty include Nandini Bhattacharya (Math), Amy Furniss (Physics), Brenda Sanfilippo (Writing), and Guido Bordignon (Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology). Their work adapting OER will impact hundreds of UCSC students taking key gateway courses, including Precalculus, Introductory Physics, Rhetoric and Inquiry, and Cell and Molecular Biology, respectively. 

OER, or free course materials that instructors can legally modify, are an important tool for reducing the high costs that UC Santa Cruz students face. But OER can also serve as an equity and instructional innovation tool as instructors can adapt them to promote belonging and ensure that course readings resonate with student identities and experiences. 

While the cohort’s projects are still in development, they currently focus on reducing course material costs by exploring alternatives to fee-based homework systems, increasing accessibility and student engagement with course readings, and more actively involving students in project based learning. As part of their projects, faculty have been exploring new tools for hosting and editing OER, strategies for reducing students’ cognitive load while reading, and building problem-based assignments and examples that are grounded in students’ experiences and interests. 

Faculty will share their experiences with using and adapting OER in Fall 2025 so that other instructors can learn more about the opportunities and challenges of changing their course materials. Anyone interested in replacing their textbook or homework system with more affordable alternatives like OER can collaborate with the library by contacting Sarah Hare, Open Educational Resources Librarian, at sehare@ucsc.edu.

Authors at the University of California, Santa Cruz now receive funding for open access publishing with Oxford University Press (OUP) through a four-year agreement with the UC Libraries. 

Nearly 500 OUP journals are covered by this agreement, and authors may look up their journal in the Journal Open Access Look-up Tool. 

To apply the funding to your article, follow the instructions in the FAQ, “If I choose to publish open access, how do payments work?”

Read important details for how our agreement with OUP works below.

Funding for Open Access Publishing with OUP
This agreement with Oxford makes a distinction between hybrid journals (i.e., journals that have both open access and subscription-based articles) and fully open access journals (i.e., journals in which all articles are published open access). Whether the journal is hybrid or open access determines the amount of funding provided to authors for original research articles. The support consists of:  

• Hybrid journals: UCSC corresponding authors who publish open access in OUP hybrid journals receive an automatic $1,000 contribution towards the article processing charge (APC), along with the option for authors to select full coverage of the APC if they do not have research funds to pay the remainder.
• Open access journals: UCSC corresponding authors who publish in OUP’s fully open access journals receive an automatic $750 contribution towards the APC. At this time, a full coverage option is not available for fully open access journals owing to the financial constraints of the agreement.

The corresponding author means current affiliates (e.g., faculty, lecturer, staff, graduate student, etc.). Graduate students are eligible for up to a year after graduation. 

Why are articles published in OUP’s hybrid journals eligible for more funding than articles published in OUP's fully open access journals? 
Like most of UC’s transformative open access publishing agreements, UC’s agreement with OUP works by transitioning the libraries’ existing journal subscription funds to instead pay to support UC authors who publish open access. However, existing subscription funds are not sufficient to cover the full costs of open access publishing by UC authors in OUP journals. UC and its partners in the agreement, including institutions from SCELC and CSU, have carefully structured the agreement to provide the maximum level of support possible within these constraints.

UC is shifting its investment from paying to read OUP journals to paying based on UC authors publishing in OUP journals. Based on careful modeling of UC publication rates, baseline fees have been established, with the amounts paid in bulk by UC. The exact amounts paid will be determined by UC corresponding author choices to publish open access. Cost controls have been put in place so that the total owed by UC in any year of the agreement is bounded.

Reach of the OUP Agreement
In addition to UC, this open access publishing agreement with Oxford includes 20 California State University (CSU) campuses, and 30 academic and research institutions represented by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).

If you have any questions about publishing with OUP, please reach out to the University Library at research@library.ucsc.edu. 
 

UCSC authors may now receive 50% of the open access fees covered by the UC Libraries through the new publishing agreement with Copernicus. This agreement is for one year (the 2025 calendar year).

The Copernicus journals covered by this agreement are the ones that charge flat article processing fees (APCs) per article. There are 26 such journals, and authors may look up journals in the Journal Open Access Look-up Tool to see whether they are covered. Articles must be original research. The corresponding author must be affiliated with UCSC (or another UC campus).

More details are available in the frequently asked questions about our Copernicus agreement.

Background
Many institutional open access agreements have so far focused on subscription publishers that are transitioning to open access. UC believes that these types of agreements can and should include native open access publishers such as Copernicus, as they are already aligned with current and emerging open access policies and mandates, as well as UC’s guidelines for open access publisher agreements. UC seeks to partner with publishers of all types, sizes, and disciplines to jointly advance a worldwide transition to open access across the scholarly publishing landscape.

If you have any questions about publishing with Copernicus, please reach out to the University Library at research@library.ucsc.edu. 
 

The new agreement between the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and UC Libraries provides funding for authors to publish open access in ASM’s six primary research subscription-based journals for three years.

Authors will not incur APCs. Standard page charges and supplemental material fees will be discounted. The corresponding author needs to be affiliated with UCSC (or another UC campus). Articles need to contain original research.

The included ASM journals are: 

• Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
• Applied and Environmental Microbiology
• Infection and Immunity
• Journal of Bacteriology
• Journal of Clinical Microbiology
• Journal of Virology

Please see the frequently asked questions about our ASM agreement for more information.

Background
Funding for open access publishing is included as part of UC’s subscription to ASM journals. The agreement follows the “Subscribe-to-Open” (S2O) model, under which the accessibility of ASM’s previously subscriber-only content depends on continued support from subscribing institutions. ASM establishes a minimum sustainability target each year to fund the journals. If the target is met, that year’s content will be made open access. If the target is not met, the content will remain available only to subscribers. This framework provides ASM a practical path to converting these journals to open access without relying on article processing charges or institutional goodwill.

If you have any questions about publishing with ASM, please reach out to the University Library at research@library.ucsc.edu. 
 

Our new homepage for the University Library website launched December 16, 2024. 

After conducting extensive user research, including interviews and web traffic analysis, and conducting usability studies of our prototypes, this new homepage provides a more user-friendly experience for our students, faculty, and staff. 

Let us know what you think by using our website feedback form!

The Journal Open Access Look-up Tool (JOLT) launched this week. JOLT is a new resource for UCSC authors to easily determine if a journal qualifies for any funding support in one of UC’s open access publishing agreements.

UC’s open access agreements provide financial support to authors for the payment of open access fees. By reducing the amount authors must pay when they choose to publish open access, these agreements make it easier and more affordable for authors to share their scholarship freely and openly with the world. 

With JOLT, authors can search more than 10,000 journal titles to find out if a specific journal is covered by a UC agreement and the extent of available funding support. Additionally, JOLT search results provide links to an FAQ page that outlines the publisher agreement and its payment workflow details. 

As of November 2024, UC has signed open access publishing agreements with 17 publishers that cover up to the full amount of the open access fees. Nearly half of all UC-authored articles are eligible for open access under these agreements. The JOLT streamlines the navigation of these agreements for authors so that they can easily see their options for open access publishing. 

Reach out to the University Library with any questions about open access publishing via our email address, research@library.ucsc.edu, or by scheduling an Author Services one-on-one Zoom appointment.
 

If you access library resources using saved links or bookmarks with "oca.ucsc.edu" in the URL or use the Zotero Browser Extension and are getting proxy errors, please read on—this message is for you!

The OCA proxy service (login.oca.ucsc.edu) was discontinued on December 31, 2024. This service has been replaced by OpenAthens, a new authentication system that uses CruzID. Links in UC Library Search were updated last summer, so if you're accessing resources directly through UC Library Search, you're all set.

Saved Link Errors: 
If you have any saved links or bookmarks that have "oca.ucsc.edu" in them, you will need to update these links to ensure continued access. You can easily do this using the Athenizer tool.

Google Scholar & Zotero Errors: 
If you use the Zotero Browser Extension and have the OCA proxy configured, you will need to remove this proxy to fix Google Scholar and Zotero errors. See the instructions for updating the Zotero extension at the bottom of our Proxy Errors & Permalinks page. 

For more details, including instructions on how to update your links, visit our Online Access from Off-Campus page.

The Publishing Tips Series from the University Library starts Thursday, October 24. This series will cover answers to graduate students’ common questions about publishing, primarily on articles but also covering dissertations and books. The tips are asynchronous (read or listen!) and cross-disciplinary, and they specify when a practice applies to particular fields.

To participate in the Publishing Tips Series, use this sign-up form. The tips will arrive in your inbox on Thursday afternoons each week.

No time to read? Each installment will include an audio version to listen to it instead!

Here is the lineup:

1. How long does it take to get published?
2. How should I choose a journal for my article? Is this a good journal?
3. How do I get support for the cost of open access publishing?
4. What are the decision points during the publishing process?
5. How do I respond to peer reviewers’ comments?
6. Can I use this thing (e.g., photo, quote, data, figure, etc.) in my article without violating copyright? Also, how does it work to include an article in my dissertation?

One of these questions will be answered each week from October 24 - December 5 (except November 28).

This series is written by the Managing Editor of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication and Scholarly Communication Librarian at the UCSC University Library, Martha Stuit, who provides Author Services at the UCSC University Library. If you have any questions, please ask in the last question of the sign-up form or reach out to research@library.ucsc.edu
 

The University Library invites applications for participation in the pilot Open & Equitable Course Materials Community of Practice. The program application should take 5-10 minutes to complete.

If you struggle to get your students to complete course readings or find that you have to supplement your textbook a lot to make it work, this Community of Practice is for you! Receive $2,000 in funding, a project budget, and support from librarians and your peers to transition one of your modules or chapters to Open Educational Resources (OER). OER can be legally customized by instructors and this year-long program will focus on customizing materials within an equity lens. Some examples might include (but are not limited to):

• Editing course materials to center underrepresented authors’ voices and perspectives
• Adding new images, examples, names, and works cited to further representation and student belonging
• Updating course materials to reflect gender inclusive language and pronouns
• Removing harmful/ outdated language or frameworks (e.g. shifting to a substance use disorder framework instead of addiction)
• Reorganizing course material content to be align with neurodivergent readers’ needs
• Enhancing accessibility features, including alt text text, headings, and closed captioning to increase compatibility with screen readers

An information session will be held on November 4 from 1-2 PM on Zoom (register for the information session). Common questions are also addressed on our FAQ.

Still not sure if your project is in scope? Contact the OER Librarian to talk in more detail about your idea.
 

Are you a faculty member who wants to share your input on library services and collections? The University Library is holding focus groups for faculty on Tuesday October 15 from 9:30-10:30 AM and 2:30-3:30 PM on Zoom. The focus groups will inform the library's strategic planning process and ensure that faculty needs and perspectives are represented.

Please sign up for one of the focus groups. We will confirm your participation by emailing you with Zoom details.

Team members from DeEtta Jones & Associates (the consulting group the library is partnering with, see more information below) will facilitate the focus groups. No preparation is needed and all feedback will be anonymous. Please contact Librarian Sarah Hare (sehare@ucsc.edu) with any questions.

DeEtta Jones and Associates (DJA), is a Black and woman-owned consulting firm specializing in equity, diversity, and inclusion training and strategic planning. Established in 2005, they work with a myriad of industries to advise, educate, facilitate, and develop strategies for creating equitable organizations. They work directly with executives, industry and community leaders, and tens of thousands of people annually to broaden thinking, incorporate new practices, and commit to actionable strategies to fight systemic inequity. Their consulting team and faculty represent a variety of cultural and professional backgrounds and offer deep domestic and global experiences to clients.
 

Authors who elect to publish open access with Taylor & Francis and Routledge Open Select journals have their full publishing fees paid by the University Library. The news announcement covers more of the details. 

The Taylor & Francis FAQ answers common author questions.

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The University Library is thrilled to introduce Annika Berry as the recipient of the 2024-2025 Fellowship in the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART).

Annika is a PhD student in the Creative/Critical Writing program of the Literature department. Originally from Portland, Oregon, they previously completed an MFA in Environmental Art and Social Practice at UC Santa Cruz, and also hold a BFA in Film, Animation, and Video from the Rhode Island School of Design. Annika is both a visual artist and writer, having exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide. Her archival experience includes collecting oral histories for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and managing projects and exhibitions for artists in New Mexico and New York.

When she begins her fellowship in Fall 2024, Annika will be immersed in Special Collections & Archives for a full academic year, devoting 20 hours per week to archives and public projects in the library. Annika will process and make available the papers of Donna Haraway, UCSC Distinguished Professor Emerita in History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies. Annika will then curate a public exhibition showcasing archival collections, opening in Spring 2025.

Stay tuned for more information on Annika’s work throughout the year!

Meet Annika Berry

Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you decide to come to UCSC for your graduate studies?

I arrived as part of the first cohort of the Environmental Art & Social Practice MFA program. I was drawn by so many things… the legacy of social and environmental justice and activism on campus, the interdisciplinary scholarship that emerges here, the location, the ocean. Less than a year in, I had the opportunity to take courses with faculty in the creative writing program and fell in love with working at that intersection between writing and visual art. And also (I was living across the country at the time in the midst of deep pandemic) I Googled the campus, audibly swooned, etc.

You’ve been working on an archival project for a while on the author S. Paige Baty. What are some of the most interesting aspects you’ve found so far in this work?

About six months after moving here, I stumbled across one of Baty’s books at Bad Animal (that used bookstore in town) and was intrigued by her written voice. I wanted to learn more about her, but could hardly find any information online. I ended up learning that Baty had been a student in the History of Consciousness program in the 1980s, so I began curiously reaching out to people who I thought might have known her. That search began to reveal a vast and complicated archive. One of the most interesting aspects of the work has been the problem of how to make legible the things that are so often absent from institutional archives: ephemeral elements like emotions, feelings, half-forgotten memories, lost and missing texts… I suppose I’m obsessed with how to make space in an archive for everything it “can’t” contain.

How did you hear about CART, and what attracted you to the fellowship?

I first heard about CART a year or so ago and recognized it as a really unique opportunity to deep-dive into archival theory and practice. When the call emerged for someone to work on the Haraway papers, I was so excited. Overall, I really value CART’s commitment to accessibility, and seeking out new ways to invite broad community and student engagement with archives in general. These collections can feel intimidating to approach, but I really believe there’s so much creative work waiting to happen in and around these sites.

What are some of your favorite things to do outside of your studies and work?

Santa Cruz has taught me how to slow down! But admittedly, the things I love doing here are probably familiar: swimming in the ocean, walking around the arboretum, cooking with insane year-round produce. Over the past year, I’ve been exploring the UC Natural Reserve System, getting away for little weekend writing retreats with friends and seeing more of the Central Coast. It sounds silly but I also love e-mail — not for school or work, but as a correspondence platform. I really love to write and receive letters.

The Elisabeth Remak-Honnef Center for Archival Research and Training (CART), established in 2014 at the UC Santa Cruz University Library, has trained dozens of graduate students in archives and exhibition work since its inception. In cultivating impactful learning experiences, CART develops students' archival research skills to support their career success, and increases access to unique Library resources for all.

Learn more about CART on our website.
 

Come visit two new exhibits in Special Collections & Archives curated by student workers: Power Through Organization, and Celebration and Self-Representation: Asian American and Pacific Islander Student Life at UC Santa Cruz. 

Celebration and Self-Representation is located in the McHenry Third Floor hallway outside of the Special Collections & Archives reading room and is viewable during all library open hours. 

Power Through Organization is viewable in Special Collections & Archives during reading room open hours. 
 

Power Through Organization: A Student-Curated Exhibition in Special Collections & Archives

Student organizing is a part of the fabric of college campuses, and through awareness campaigns, protests, and embodying shared ideals, these movements resonate with profound solidarity for strongly held beliefs and local and global issues. This exhibit–conceived and organized by current UCSC students–highlights campus organizing efforts in order to preserve and promote the voices of student activists. In order of display, the exhibit focuses on student response to the Persian Gulf War, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian campaign, apartheid in South Africa, the Delano grape strike, women’s rights, the naming of College 7, and affirmative action.

This exhibit also serves as a tribute to student voices that refuse to be silenced by the passage of time. It's a reminder of the power of collective action and the impact it has in shaping our society.

Join us as we honor the legacies of those who dared to challenge the status quo, and whose voices echo through our campus and beyond. This is not just a collection of events; it's a celebration of the resilience and resolve of student activism.
 

Celebration and Self-Representation: Asian American and Pacific Islander Student Life at UC Santa Cruz

At UC Santa Cruz, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students have united to assert their presence and foster a sense of community. Acknowledging that the university and city have not always recognized and welcomed Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, students engage in tactics of self-representation and proudly celebrate their diverse identities.

Through cultural celebrations, collective action, and educational resources, AAPI students actively shape their experiences on campus. This exhibit showcases their efforts through a collection of historical materials, including records from the Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center, the UCSC Poster Collection, and various student publications.

Celebration and Self-Representation was curated by student workers in Special Collections and Archives. Our goal is to start conversations about records created by Asian American and Pacific Islander students. We hope that visitors will feel welcome to visit Special Collections, inspired to create their own archives documenting their experiences at UCSC, and make connections between past and present student life.

This exhibition is co-curated by Benyamin Alfaro, Alana Corona, Samantha Elfiqhi, Sophia Gallaga-Rabinowitz, and Prema Reyes with assistance from Meleia Simon-Reynolds, Alix Norton, and Sam Regal. We received feedback from our student advisor, Madeline Bautista Mauer, PASIFIKA programs and outreach intern.

 

Open access publishing support will continue for articles in Wiley journals for three more years. UC’s agreement with Wiley to provide funding for open access publication is renewed with the same terms through December 31, 2026.

What’s new is that 48 California libraries, in addition to the University of California system, are part of this agreement, so we are expanding OA opportunities for authors across the state.

Please see the Office of Scholarly Communication blog post for more information. For all of our publishing agreements and discounts, the terms vary, and it is key for authors to understand the details early in the publishing process – please also see UC’s Wiley FAQ.   
 

Journal images courtesy of Wiley

Open access publishing support for 20 humanities, social science, and sustainability Frontiers journal titles is now available for UCSC authors. The agreement is a pilot that began on August 1, 2023 and goes through July 31, 2024.

The way this open access publishing agreement works is that the full cost of the article processing charge (APC) (i.e., open access fee) is covered by the UC Libraries for the following 20 journals:

• In humanities and social sciences:
  • Frontiers in Behavioral Economics
  • Frontiers in Communication
  • Frontiers in Digital Humanities
  • Frontiers in Education
  • Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology
  • Frontiers in Environmental Economics
  • European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy
  • Frontiers in Human Dynamics
  • Frontiers in Political Science
  • Frontiers in Sociology

• In sustainability:
  • Frontiers in Climate
  • Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
  • Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability
  • Frontiers in Sustainability
  • Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
  • Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy
  • Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
  • Frontiers in Sustainable Resource Management
  • Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism
  • Frontiers in Water

To ensure the APC fee is covered, authors need to select UCSC as the payer when they submit their manuscript. As with all of the other UC open access publishing agreements, the corresponding author must have been currently affiliated with UCSC at the time of acceptance for the article (for Frontiers, those dates are between August 1, 2023, and July 31, 2024). More details are available in our Frontiers FAQ.

Frontiers is just one of many publishers with which the UC Libraries have an open access publishing agreement or discount. The full list of agreements that UC has signed outlines the unique payment support terms for each publisher. Note that the terms can vary significantly by publisher, and please do not hesitate to reach out to the University Library (research@library.ucsc.edu) if you have questions or want to make sure you are clear about any of the publisher agreements before you submit. 

Starting September 14, 2023, email notifications from the UC Publication Management System are going out to authors who are covered by the UC Presidential Open Access Policy. This is the same system that Senate Faculty have been using since the implementation of the UC Open Access Policies.

In addition to faculty, the UC Publication Management System will now also notify UCSC authors in the following categories: 

• non-senate researchers, 
• lecturers, 
• post-doctoral scholars, 
• administrative staff, 
• librarians, and 
• graduate students.

if they have articles to verify and either upload or share the open access link. 

This system supports authors’ participation in UC Presidential Open Access Policy by making it easier for them to share their scholarly articles open access in eScholarship. 

When authors get a welcome message from the system, they may go ahead and manage their publications. Following the welcome message, authors will only receive notifications when there is a new publication to manage. 

If you have questions about the UC Publication Management System, UC Open Access Policies, or open access publishing at UCSC, please reach out to the University Library at research@library.ucsc.edu. 

Other relevant resources include: 

• UC Publication Management System
• UC Open Access Policies 
• Which version of my article should I upload?
• UC Open Access Publishing Agreements and Discounts

The University Library is thrilled to introduce Meleia Simon-Reynolds as the recipient of the 2023-2024 Fellowship in the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART).

Meleia is a PhD candidate in the History department, the Co-Director of the Watsonville is in the Heart Digital Archive, and the Okinawa Memories Initiative Exhibits Team Lead and Curriculum Development Co-Lead. Meleia and her team in the Watsonville is in the Heart Oral History project have been partnering with the University Library since 2021 to document and preserve the stories of Filipino American families in the Pajaro Valley area. The project is ongoing, with more oral histories to be added in the future. Audio recordings of the interviews can be accessed via Soundcloud, and the collection guide with descriptions of interviews and family biographies can be accessed on the Online Archive of California.

When she begins her fellowship in Fall 2023, Meleia will be the first CART fellow to be immersed in Special Collections & Archives for a full academic year, devoting 20 hours per week to archives and public exhibition projects in the library. During the year, Meleia will process and make available the papers of local artist and philosopher Nina Graboi, as well as the records of the Watsonville-Santa Cruz chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). She will then curate a public exhibition using archival collections which will open in Spring 2024.

Stay tuned for more information on Meleia’s work throughout the year, and about the 10th anniversary of the Center for Archival Research and Training coming up in 2024!

Meet Meleia Simon-Reynolds

Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you decide to come to UCSC for your graduate studies?

I initially decided to attend UCSC’s History doctoral program in order to study with my advisor, Dr. Alice Yang. Her expertise in Asian American studies and oral history aligned with my desire to pursue research topics in Filipino American history and investigate personal and collective memories of migration to the United States. I was also excited by the opportunity to receive training and a designated emphasis in Visual Studies through the History of Art and Visual Culture department. This training has shaped my dissertation research on Filipino American migrant photography. 

Another reason I decided to come to UCSC was because I was born in Santa Cruz. Although my family no longer lives in the area, I felt comfortable here. Through my community-engaged work with the Watsonville is in the Heart research initiative, I have been able to learn many things I never knew about Santa Cruz County’s diverse history and form relationships with community members. This experience has made UCSC and the Santa Cruz community feel even more like home. 

How did you hear about CART, and what attracted you to the program?

I initially heard about the CART program during my orientation. Over my first few years of graduate school, I was able to attend workshops about conducting archival research that were immensely helpful to me. I applied for the CART fellowship because through my experience with the Watsonville is in the Heart initiative I developed a passion for archival work. I was also able to work with Special Collections staff like Alix, Teresa, and Rebecca. I am excited for the opportunity to learn so much more about archival theory and practice through the CART program and hopefully prepare to apply for jobs in archiving after I graduate. 

What is the most important thing you’ve learned while working with Watsonville is in the Heart and the Okinawa Memories Initiative?

I have learned so much through my work with the Watsonville is in the Heart and Okinawa Memories Initiative. Through these projects I was introduced to public humanities and community-engaged research.  I find this type of work incredibly meaningful because I am able to create strong relationships with community members and organizations. The most important lessons I have learned are the importance of building trust and allowing communities to lead the way when preserving and researching their histories. These have been my guiding principles as I engage with communities who have been historically marginalized in institutional archives and often exploited by university researchers. 

What are some of your favorite things to do outside of your studies and work?

Outside of school and work my favorite thing to do is cook for my friends and family. For me, cooking is meditative and the best way to relax after a long day. Recently, I have also found a lot of joy in attending adult ballet classes at Motion Pacific Dance. It has been really exciting to get back into a hobby I did so often growing up. 

The Elisabeth Remak-Honnef Center for Archival Research and Training (CART), established in 2014 at the UC Santa Cruz University Library, has trained dozens of graduate students in archives and exhibition work since its inception. In cultivating impactful learning experiences, CART develops students' archival research skills to support their career success, and increases access to unique Library resources for all.

Learn more about CART on our website.

The Elisabeth Remak-Honnef Center for Archival Research and Training (CART) is pleased to announce the opening of this year’s exhibitions curated by the 2022-2023 graduate fellows. These two exhibitions feature the Ingeborg Gerdes Photographs and Papers, as well as the Florence Wyckoff Papers, the William H. Friedland Papers, the William MacKenzie Papers, and the California Farm Research and Legislative Committee Records.

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Ingeborg Gerdes in Process: The Making of an Artist, curated by Yulia Gilich, features materials from the newly acquired collection of Ingeborg Gerdes Photographs and Papers. The vast collection reflects the legacy of artist Ingeborg Gerdes, including her meticulous craftsmanship and prolific photographic career, momentous personal life, and commitment to teaching. Born in Germany in 1938, Gerdes was known for photographing her travels through the American West among other locales, and taught at UC Santa Cruz for over two decades. The collection also offers a glimpse of the history of photography as a medium, which dramatically changed over the course of Gerdes’ life and career. Containing exhibition prints, film negatives, work prints, contact sheets, and slides, the exhibit traces Gerdes’ photographic trajectory from black and white film to color and, later, to digital photography.

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Beyond the Ivory Tower: Community engagement, education, and organizing in California’s Central Coast, curated by Riley Collins, Carrie Hamilton, Brittney Jimenez, and Summer Sullivan, tells a story about different approaches for eliciting social change in California’s Central Coast and beyond. While the large-scale, vegetable-dominant agriculture of the region has led to prosperity for some, it has resulted in unjust conditions for others. The area’s farm workers, in particular, have for decades faced numerous challenges related to immigration, labor, race and ethnicity, and education. The collections featured in this exhibition demonstrate that there are many avenues for activism both in and outside of academia, and are united around a goal of community-oriented social change for underrepresented groups, particularly the working class and immigrants. Central to the theories of change presented in each collection is the power of education as a public and social good.

Both exhibits are on view from June 15th to December 8th, 2023, in the Third Floor Gallery of McHenry Library at UC Santa Cruz.

For more information on these exhibitions and collections, visit the Special Collections & Archives website or contact Special Collections & Archives at speccoll@library.ucsc.edu.

The University of California announced today an expansion of the university’s open access agreement with Wiley, one of the world’s largest publishers. Building on the success of a 2022 pilot agreement at five UC campuses, including Santa Cruz, researchers at all 10 UC campuses will now receive funding support to publish open access, making significantly more UC research freely available to people around the world.

What the agreement means for UC authors



Under the 2023 agreement, the UC libraries will continue to pay the first $1,000 of the open access fee, or article processing charge (APC), for faculty, students, and staff at UCSC who publish in any of Wiley’s more than 1,600 journals. The libraries will pay the entire APC for authors who wish to make their work freely available but do not have research funds available. UC authors also receive a 15 percent discount on the APC.

Building on success



This shared funding model proved successful in the first year of the pilot between UC and Wiley. On the five campuses that participated in 2022 — Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz — the number of open access articles published in Wiley journals increased nearly three-fold compared with previous years.



Bringing in Berkeley (including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Davis, San Diego, UCLA and UCSF will quadruple the amount of UC research covered under the agreement — putting UC on track for an even greater number of open access articles in 2023. Ten percent of all UC research is published in Wiley journals.



The expanded systemwide pilot agreement covers an unlimited number of UC-authored articles published in Wiley journals in 2023.

More information



For more details about the agreement, please visit the UC Office of Scholarly Communication website or contact the University Library at research@library.ucsc.edu.

The University Library is pleased to announce the awardee of the Visualizing Abolition Artist in the Archive Residency for the 2022-2023 academic year: Ontario Alexander.

Ontario Alexander (he/him) is a Cross-Cultural Musicology Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His area of study includes historical musicology in the French Baroque period and the roles of colonial history and theory in music. Other areas of interest include African American Black music history and social theory of music concerning the developments of gospel, blues, and jazz music as acts of political resistance, struggles for freedom, and cultural affirmation. Alexander holds an M.A. in Vocal Performance and an M.B.A. from California State University, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Theater from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. As a multidisciplinary artist, he integrates his art practice into his research.

The Visualizing Abolition Artist in the Archive Residency fosters creative research and experiential learning about prisons, policing, and the movement for abolition through archival engagements with UC Santa Cruz University Library Special Collections & Archives. Created in partnership with the Mellon Foundation funded Visualizing Abolition public scholarship initiative, the Archive Residency Program offers a one-year stipend and research support for a graduate student artist to engage with unique primary materials in Special Collections & Archives and examine the University’s role in police and prison abolition, critique dominant historical narratives and archival silences, and/or explore connections between art, history, and social justice.

This program supports the goal of the Visualizing Abolition initiative: to shift the social attachment to prisons through art and education. Additionally, it is in alignment with the University Library goal of student success by providing an opportunity for experiential learning, and to present research and works-in-progress associated with the Library. This is the first year of this residency program, and is therefore being approached as a pilot project intended to explore the possibilities of collaborative programming in this area.