After more than two years of negotiations, this morning the University of California announced a transformative open access agreement with Elsevier, the world’s largest academic publisher. This successful outcome is the result of UC’s faculty, librarians, and university leadership coming together to stand firm on our goals of making UC research freely available to all and transforming scholarly communication for the better.

The new four-year agreement will go into effect on April 1, 2021, restoring UC’s direct online access to Elsevier journals while accomplishing the university’s two goals for all publisher agreements:

1. Enabling universal open access to all UC research; and 
2. Containing the excessively high costs associated with licensing journals.

These goals directly support UC’s responsibility as a steward of public funds and its mission as a public university to make its research freely available. The agreement with Elsevier will double the number of articles covered by UC’s open access agreements.

What the agreement means for the UC community

• Reading access: By April 1, 2021, UC will have regained access to all articles published in Elsevier journals the libraries subscribed to before, plus additional journals to which UC previously did not subscribe. Access to those journals in ScienceDirect will start to be restored now and will continue to be added until they are all available on April 1. If you cannot access a particular journal yet, you can access articles in other ways in the interim. 
  
   
• Open access publishing in Elsevier journals: The agreement also provides for open access publishing of UC research in nearly 2,300 Elsevier journals from day one. The Cell Press and Lancet families of journals will be integrated midway through the four-year agreement; UC’s agreement is the first in the world to provide for open access publishing in the entire suite of these prestigious journals.
  
   
• Library support for open access publishing: All articles with a UC corresponding author will be open access by default, with the library automatically paying the first $1,000 of the open access fee (also known as an article publishing charge or APC). Authors will be asked to pay the remainder of the APC if they have research funds available to do so.
  
   
• Discounts on publishing: To lower those costs even further for authors, UC has negotiated a 15 percent discount on the APCs for most Elsevier journals; the discount is  10 percent for the Cell Press and Lancet families of journals.
  
   
• Full funding support for those who need it: To ensure that all authors have the opportunity to publish their work open access, the library will cover the full amount of the APC for those who do not have sufficient research funds for the author share. Authors may also opt out of open access publishing if they wish.

If you have any questions, please contact the library at research@library.ucsc.edu.

Journal images courtesy of Elsevier

UC Library Search will replace Melvyl on July 27, 2021.  Additionally, all of the sources currently available in UCSC’s Library Search will also be available from this one tool.

What is UC Library Search? What does it do?

We believe UC Library Search will vastly improve the research experiences of faculty, students, and other members of campus. This tool will enable searching of the UCSC local and UC-wide collections as one, while preserving the benefits and features of the local system, such as access to Course Reserves. Search results will benefit from inclusion of the combined UC campus collections, including items found in separate databases like HathiTrust. Most importantly, as discovery of materials improves, borrowing across campuses will become easier with a simplified interlibrary loan user interface.

Why is Melvyl retiring?

Behind the scenes, Melvyl relied on a complex patchwork system that connected multiple catalogs and databases in order to coordinate interlibrary loan and full-text access. As several of these systems approached the end of their life spans, the UC Libraries recognized the technical unsustainability and inherent risks associated with keeping the Melvyl system.

Celebrating Melvyl!

Melvyl debuted in 1981, revolutionizing the UC Library system by enabling researchers to find books at other UC campuses through computer terminals on their own campuses. Over the years, Melvyl has undergone various iterations. The most recent of these was upgrading to a discovery layer. 

As the sun sets on Melvyl, we celebrate the 40 years of innovative thinking and dedicated work that went into this vital tool. We also enthusiastically welcome UC Library Search, which will move us forward on this constantly evolving front and continue the UC Libraries tradition of working cooperatively and collaboratively.

The two state-of-the-art spaces in the Science & Engineering Library have been named in the honor of these distinguished science pioneers: the Sandra M. Faber Floor (third floor) and the Kathryn D. Sullivan Floor (first floor), thanks to naming gifts from donors Claudia and Alec Webster.  See the full article in the UC Santa Cruz Newscenter.

Three new transformative agreements for UC authors to publish open access are launching this week. The agreements are with the following publishers:

• Canadian Science Publishing
• Company of Biologists 
• Royal Society

We are excited to partner with these not-for-profit publishers.  

Each of these agreements is for three years. Articles accepted for publication from January 1, 2021 or after are eligible. 

Similar to the other transformative deals the UC has reached, these three also aim to expand the reach of UC-authored research, reduce financial barriers to author participation, and maintain journal affordability. Read more on the UC Office of Scholarly Communication site.

UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of the open access fee, or article processing charge (APC), for authors at the participating campuses. Authors are asked to pay the remainder if they have research funds available to do so. Authors who do not have research funds available can request full funding of the APC from the libraries, ensuring that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish open access.

You can now find all books available online through the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service digitized from any UC collection directly from Library Search! This equals over 2.4 million titles owned by the University of California Libraries.

Just enter your search terms in the Library Search box on the homepage.

Items from HathiTrust ETAS will be shown as “Available Online” in your search results. Click the “Available via HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service” link to access the item.

Note that you will be asked to authenticate using your CruzID gold username and password to view the item in HathiTrust.

On July 27, 2021, UC Library Search will go live, unifying the 10 University of California campus libraries under one integrated library system. UC Library Search will offer an integrated discovery and borrowing experience and will feature the following enhancements:

• Ensures access to local materials without sacrificing discoverability from the wider collections of the UC and WorldCat (Libraries Worldwide) 
• Eliminates the need to toggle between two systems (UCSC Search and Melvyl)
• Simplifies the process of borrowing and renewing from another UC library
• Greater discovery and access of full-text digital content throughout the library’s online collections

With this system/platform change, the long-used name Melvyl will be retired. Rest assured that the UC collections remain intact and the new system continues our tradition of making accessible a broad array of materials through innovative practices and technologies. 

The Library will communicate UC Library Search updates and progress. In the meantime, read more about this project on the University of California Libraries website. 

Curious about what movies you can watch for free?
The library has a new feature to browse or search films.

Find documentaries, foreign films, and more!

• All streaming videos
• Swank licensed streaming videos
• Kanopy licensed streaming videos
• UCSC owned streaming videos
• Academic Video Online (AVON) licensed streaming videos

You will need to sign in with your CruzID for access.

"movie-clapper-icon_500x500" by Shmector is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The University Library is pleased to share the recently released Statement on Equity in Special Collections, Archives, and Distinctive Collections in the University of California Libraries. The Heads of Special Collections of the UC System worked collaboratively to develop this statement. The group of leaders of Special Collections at each UC campus recognized their role and agency in addressing historic wrongs and worked to conceive an actionable statement about how they intend to effect change within the institution by "develop[ing] practices that counteract a paradigm of racist, sexist, and white-centered collecting, description, instruction, and access." The statement is a first small step meant to signal the beginning of a true reflection on and reassessment of this work. The work and all activities of Special Collections & Archives at UCSC are guided by the Statement.

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

ProQuest, one of our eBook and database providers, will be down for maintenance beginning Saturday, January 30 at 7:00 PM PST through Sunday, January 31 at 5:00 AM PST.  This means that some ebooks, databases, and streaming video content will be temporarily unavailable.

If you encounter difficulties with access after this timeframe, check to make sure you are logged into the campus VPN first and if the resource is still not working for you, contact the library.

We are very excited to offer a fantastic opportunity now open to UCSC undergraduates interested in doing a digital research project.

Up to 6 Undergraduate Digital Research Fellows will be selected to participate in a two-quarter training and mentorship program meant to launch digitally-focused independent research projects.

The Fellowship includes:

• Methodological training which combines critical theory, critical making, and creativity
• Digital skill-building around text analysis, visualization, 3D Animation, mapping, etc. as needed in order to enable fellows to build a research project of their unique design
• Ongoing mentorship to support project development by a Digital Scholarship Librarian
• A $500 award to support the development or public presentation of their work
• Presentation experience at the Digital Research Symposium in spring 2021

Applications are due by Thursday, January 21, 2021!

For more details about how to apply and Fellowship requirements, please visit our application page.

Thank you for your interest, but the sessions are now filled.

Stay tuned for future opportunities.

As of January 4, 2021, Phase I of the University of California and Springer Nature’s Transformative Agreement is live. Phase I of the agreement supports UC authors whose articles are accepted by journals in the Springer portion of the Springer Nature portfolio, including Springer, Adis, and Palgrave Macmillan titles, as well as academic journals on nature.com.  

Learn more about the agreement and how it provides funding for UC authors to publish open access with Springer.  

Check out some of the journals included in this agreement!  

(Images courtesy of Springer Nature)

Check out the campus history collections recently published on the library's Digital Collections site.

The collections include photographs, maps, and scrapbooks covering the founding of UCSC through the present.

Stories from the Epicenter is a ten-part documentary podcast that explores the experience and memory of the Loma Prieta Earthquake through oral history records and interviews with current residents of Santa Cruz and Watsonville. It was produced by the University Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in partnership with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and Santa Cruz Public Libraries.

See the full list of episodes and visual companion to the podcast on the Digital Scholarship page.

Read the Fall 2020 Library Newsletter.

Subscribe to the newsletter to have it delivered directly to your email inbox!

The Library is pleased to announce the completion of a music preservation project, Digitizing the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music: Putting Experimental Music in Conversation with Classical Tradition. Founded in 1963, the Cabrillo Festival is distinctive in its focus on contemporary symphonic music by living composers. This project preserves and makes available over 670 recordings of live Festival performances from 1964-1990, and features works by experimental artists such as Annea Lockwood, John Cage, Lou Harrison, and many others.

These recordings document the "critical role the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music played in shaping local culture and national practices surrounding classical and contemporary music,” notes Madison Heying, Ph.D. (Cultural Musicology, UC Santa Cruz), who co-wrote the grant with the Library. Recordings were drawn from two collections held by UCSC Special Collections: the Cabrillo Festival records and the Other Minds records.

The recordings are now discoverable on the UC Santa Cruz University Library Digital Collections site.* Due to copyright restrictions, immediate streaming access is limited to UCSC affiliates. All other interested users, including researchers and the general public, may search and browse performance descriptions and request access from Special Collections. (Note: Recordings from Festival seasons 1991-2003 were also digitized with the support of this grant, and are available upon request.)

This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

*UC Santa Cruz University Library Digital Collections Site is currently in beta. Feedback is welcome.

Your students are under stress—high textbook costs are leading many to delay or not even purchase required texts at all. Result: poorer grades, dropped classes, and lower retention rates...as educational inequity rises. What can instructors do about it? Adopting or adapting Open Educational Resources offers all-inclusive, openly licensed, always-accessible course materials at no cost to students! AND using, modifying, or even contributing to OER materials helps build a more open, equitable, and sustainable future for higher education.

Join the University Library for a one-hour workshop on OER where we'll go over: Issues, concepts, and fundamentals of OER How to find and assess OER materials Identifying OER in your discipline—a hands-on exercise Learn how you can incorporate OER into your curriculum and improve student success!

Tuesday, October 13th, 5–6pm via Zoom

REGISTER

Don’t let a paywalled journal article stop you from pursuing the full-text. There are two free browser extensions that can help.

Nomad

Nomad is a Chrome extension that will link either to our Library’s subscription, or to an interlibrary loan request link. Download LibKey Nomad at the Chrome Store, and when prompted for your institution, search Santa Cruz and choose University of California Santa Cruz. 

On a journal page, you will start seeing the Nomad access button in the lower left corner.

At select sites, such as Wikipedia or PubMed, you will start seeing small Nomad access buttons next to citations with library subscriptions.

Unpaywall

Available on both Chrome and Firefox, Unpaywall detects when you’re looking at a journal article and adds a small color-coded tab to the right side of the page.

   A green unlocked tab links to a legal, free, open access version. The tab can also be gold or bronze.

   A grey locked tab means that Unpaywall can’t connect you to an open access copy.

Both Nomad and Unpaywall browser extensions have clear privacy and security statements that they won’t share your data with third parties.

A note for UCSC students, staff and faculty using the campus VPN to access library licensed databases, journals, books and other resources

From Campus ITS:

Beginning Saturday July 25th, at 10 am, signing into Campus VPN will work differently.

You will be prompted to enter your password as usual but will also be required to enter a passcode or keyword tied to the Campus Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solution. This is the same method for logging into UCPath, MyUCSC, Canvas, and CruzPay.

Please review the quick start guide to learn what to enter into the MFA field. Valid options include push (recommended), SMS, phone, or passcode. 

Questions?

If you have questions about MFA, please contact the ITS Support Center. 

Did you miss any part of the Summer 2020 series?

Each event in this six-part series, featuring the editors of SEEDS alongside prominent UCSC faculty and staff commentators, was recorded and can now be viewed online.

View the recordings

The University of California has reached a transformative open access agreement with Springer Nature, the world’s second-largest academic publisher. See the press release here. 

UC authors: link here for more details about how the deal will impact you.

HathiTrust has taken an important step to open up copyrighted material in their digital library to member institutions with copies of those items in their physical collections. As their libraries are approved for the service, UC faculty, students, and staff will have access to digitized books in HathiTrust that represent UC’s physical holdings. This emergency, temporary service expands access significantly beyond the millions of digitized public domain volumes currently available via HathiTrust.

To take advantage of this temporary expanded access:

1. Visit https://www.hathitrust.org and click the yellow “LOG IN” button.
2. Select “University of California Santa Cruz” and log in using your CruzID Gold credentials.
3. Search the HathiTrust digital library to locate the item you wish to view.
4. Click on the Temporary Access link at the bottom of the record to Check Out the item through the Emergency Temporary Access Service.

You will have 60 minutes of access to an in-copyright book during the session. If you remain active in the book during the session, access time will be extended. You are not able to download the book in any way; you may only read it online in an active session while using HathiTrust. This access model is intended to address the unique access needs of this moment while still protecting the author’s rights.

It is important to note that this is a temporary service. Emergency access will end when regular access to UC library’s physical collection is restored. 

HathiTrust’s Top Three Tips for Users:

1. Log-in, Log-in, Log-in! Temporary Access books available from your library’s collection are available only when you log-in to HathiTrust using your normal CruzID Gold log-in and password. 
2. Check out an item only when you plan to use it. Each Temporary Access book has an initial check-out period of 60 minutes. If you remain active in the book during any session, access time will be extended. If you do not remain active, it will be released for use by other users on your campus.
3. Use step-by-step instructions for computer/mobile access. Start here: https://www.hathitrust.org/ETAS-How-To

If you have questions or concerns, please submit them to feedback@issues.hathitrust.org.

Quickly and easily find online library materials!

What changed?
Searching from the library homepage search box now defaults to our new "Available Online" scope. This will retrieve online library resources such as ebooks, articles, streaming audio or video, and more.

This change supports remote learning and instruction by increasing the efficiency of discovering online materials.

Want to see physical library materials in your search results?
Select the "Everything" option from the dropdown menu on the library homepage to retrieve results for both physical and online items.
 

Though the main UC Santa Cruz campus has been evacuated, the library's online resources and services remain available.  We want to express our deep appreciation to Cal Fire and the myriad of agencies working to fight the fire and keep the campus safe. 

Here are just a few resources library staff are watching to keep ourselves informed about the status of the fire and the campus, evacuations, and air quality.  We hope you'll find them useful:

CZU Lightning Complex Updates and news:

UC Santa Cruz Fire Updates

Cal Fire San Mateo / Santa Cruz Twitter feed

Cal Fire's CZU Lightning Complex Update Page

Santa Cruz County Twitter feed

CZU Lightning Complex Maps:

Air Now Fire and Smoke Map

CZU Lightning Complex Evacuation Map

Interactive Map from CalTopo

SCU Lightning Complex Updates:

Cal Fire's SCU Lighting Complex Update Page

SCU Lightning Complex Evacuation Viewer

(The SCU Fire is located in Santa Clara and Alameda counties)

Both the McHenry Library and the Science and Engineering Library will be closed until further notice. Services that involve accessing or exchanging physical items will not be offered. All patron-facing services will focus solely on online or remote options. More information about resources and contacts are available at the Library Remote Access webpage.  

See more campus information on the impact of the COVID-19 virus.