University Library Newsletter Issue 21 Spring 2014

1954Issue 21 Spring 2014

From the University Librarian

1904I’m delighted to share with you that a measure to create a fee to support 24/5 access to the Science & Engineering Library’s main floor will be on the April student ballot. Both the Student Union Assembly and the individual College governments endorsed the measure to appear on the ballot. If the measure passes, the fee will support a 3-year pilot to test a central concept of the renovation plans: all-night library access. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.  

As you know, we at UCSC completed one library renovation project in 2012 and have embarked on another. I recently spoke to the members of the Santa Cruz Public Library Joint Powers Board about the thinking, planning, and processes involved in the re-do of the McHenry building and the planned renovation of the Science & Engineering Library. As those board members consider their own building and renovation projects, they appreciated hearing about the openness and flexibility that characterized the process that created the transformative changes our students now enjoy.

Collaboration among community organizations is always gratifying. The Santa Cruz Public Library is working to expand its local history collections by digitizing photographs of local residents. Since the University Library’s Digital Initiatives staff had experience in this arena, they provided training and direction at the kickoff event of the Snapshot Series that was held at the Museum of Art and History. The Public Library Joint Powers Board officially recognized Sue Perry and her staff at their recent meeting. Thanks to Sue and her very capable staff!

During Alumni Weekend, we’ll have a panel presentation highlighting the Library’s Regional History Project. Mark your calendar for Saturday morning, April 26th, McHenry Library. Hope to see you there!

Elizabeth Cowell
University Librarian
 

Generous Spirits
Chuck Davis and Paul Hall

Architect Chuck Davis and attorney Paul Hall are UCSC parents who share a determination to see the Science & Engineering Library (S&E) rejuvenated.

Paul’s devotion to UCSC dates back to his own university days at Merrill College (class of ’72). Today, as President of1947Lauren & Paul Hall the UCSC Foundation board of trustees, he is at the hub of the Campaign for UCSC, whose ambitious goal is to raise $300 million in support of UCSC’s people, programs, and facilities. Among those facilities is the renovation of the Science & Engineering Library. Paul’s daughter Lauren, (Stevenson, class of 2013), fueled her long hours of study at the Paul Hall Coffee Bar at McHenry Library’s Global Village Cafe. Paul has derived so much pleasure from having sponsored McHenry’s coffee bar that he has pledged to fund one at the renovated S&E.  

1944Chuck DavisChuck’s connections to UCSC are broad and deep. His firm, EHDD, is a go-to architectural firm for the design of many University of California buildings, including the award-winning Science Library, as it was originally called. Today Chuck’s son Hayden studies in the building his dad’s firm designed almost 30 years ago . . . and complains that there aren’t enough electrical outlets—which, indeed, there are not! When Chuck Davis learned that the library building was going to be remodeled, he generously offered to help librarians and other campus planners re-think the spaces and make necessary drawings. This work is his gift. We are honored to have his guidance.

Just as it took many generous spirits to fund the expansion and renovation of McHenry Library, so will it take many people, working together, to rejuvenate S&E. With the help of hundreds of donors to date, we are off to a good start. Our warmest thanks to every supporter, but especially to Paul and Chuck. Won’t YOU join them?  
 

Making and Documenting History at UCSC

Saturday, April 26th
10 am – 12 pm
Special Collections, McHenry Library

Steadily, quietly, for the past fifty years, a major treasure has been accumulating in a quiet corner of McHenry Library. The Library’s Regional Oral History Project has gathered several hundred oral histories capturing the history of the UC Santa Cruz campus and the surrounding community, and many more are planned for the future. Please join us for an exploration of campus history and an opportunity to meet some of your favorite faculty and staff members who have been our narrators!
1934Founded by Chancellor Dean McHenry and Founding University Librarian 1936Donald Clark—who both understood, even before the campus opened its doors, how important it would be to record the evolving story of this innovative campus and the unique community in which it is situated—the oral history program connects the campus with the community. The program has published books such as Cultivating a Movement, telling the story of the campus’s national impact in shaping sustainable agriculture, and Out in the Redwoods, documenting forty years of UCSC’s GLBT history. Oral historians interview dedicated, inspiring, and innovative faculty 1937and staff, who have founded and nourished interdisciplinary majors such as History of Consciousness, Environmental Studies, Feminist Studies, Ocean Sciences, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Community Studies.

This event will include a panel discussion with Oral History Narrators Professor Michael Cowan, Professor Pedro Castillo, Professor Donna Haraway, Retired Library Staff Member David Kirk, and Director of Regional Oral History Irene Reti. Nikki Silva, UCSC alum and co-producer of NPR's The Kitchen Sisters, will be moderating the panel discussion. Also on exhibit at Special Collections during Spring Quarter 2014 is "A Long Listen: Fifty Years of Oral History from the UCSC Library's Regional Oral History Project."

We hope you will join us to sample UCSC’s oral histories and hear about our plans for the future! Check out our website to learn more about the Regional History Project. For any further questions, please contact Ethan Henderson, Senior Director of Library Development.


Music at the Library

Marion Taylor, Retired UCSC Librarian

Music students and performers have an especially acute need for high-quality editions of scores and performance parts, as well as sound recordings. Retired librarian Marion Taylor wants to make sure UCSC library users have what they need.  So, she’s created an endowment.

When I began as a librarian at UC Santa Cruz in 1969, I started in Acquisitions and then moved to Collection1910Students shelving in the music stacks Development, selecting materials in history and social sciences and, ultimately, music. During my entire time at Santa Cruz I worked regularly at the Reference Desk. I played in community orchestras and in chamber music groups.

Classical music has always been important to me. I started violin lessons when I was seven and switched to viola when I was fourteen. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley I was in string quartet classes coached by members of the Griller String Quartet. This introduced me to chamber music, which I have played regularly ever since.

Just before I retired in 1993, the library’s development director suggested that I create an endowment fund in support of the music collection. I was happy to do so. I have contributed to the fund each year and have it as a beneficiary in my will.

The endowment has enriched the collection in a time of steady decreases in funds available to buy music scores, books, and sound recordings in various formats. No matter how technology develops, students of music will need high-quality editions of music scores and performance parts in addition to texts—in book or electronic form—and audio recordings.

I hope that anyone interested in building a strong music collection at UC Santa Cruz will contribute to the Marion Taylor Music Fund.

1896Solmaaz Adeli

 

"As an opera singer and UCSC alumna I continue to enjoy the music collection at McHenry. I'm very thankful for the resources McHenry library provides and the help of the librarians in accessing those resources." Solmaaz Adeli (Crown, 2003)

Interested in establishing a Library Subject Endowment? This is a marvelous way to honor or memorialize someone. Contact Director of Library Development Ethan Henderson at 831-459-5870

 

Ms. Marion Taylor is enjoying a long and active retirement. She served on the Cabrillo Music Festival Board for many years and returns to Santa Cruz each summer for the festival. Marion has been active in the League of Women Voters in Santa Cruz County, on the state board, and now in Oakland and in the Bay Area League.   She remains a passionate musician, regularly attending chamber music workshops, and serves as music librarian for the Chamber Musicians of Northern California.

 

“Fresh Air and Bird Conversations”
McHenry Library’s reading porches: the best places to study

Sara Kaiser

It may not be in my best interest to do this, as it may raise awareness and therefore demand, but I’d like to share my thoughts on what makes the outdoor reading porches on the 4th floor at McHenry Library two of the best places to study on campus. These porches offer a quiet study environment that is open to the sights, sounds, and smells of the Santa Cruz land- and sea-scape.

1948Novack Reading PorchEnvironment profoundly affects a person’s physical and mental state. Bodies constantly take in, interpret, and reflect external stimuli. Depending on the circumstances, this can be a blessing or a curse. The place a student chooses to study is likely to affect her mood, attitude, and productivity. Inside the library, the presence of others hard at work is often motivating, but it can also be stressful. Tension is contagious, and in the shadow of intense focus, we students may grit our teeth, stiffen our muscles, and breathe shallowly. On the other hand, a student who tries to study in a warm meadow or beneath an old oak may enjoy such languor and contentedness that studying not only becomes impossible, but also unimportant.

A weird bug crawling on a stick is far more captivating than the assignment that is due tomorrow.

The outdoor reading porches at McHenry library present a perfect compromise—a middle ground between the modes of hyper-focus and unconcerned torpor. The chair and table encourage concentration, which the fresh air and bird conversations temper with calm and perspective. A previously daunting task seems a little less serious, but not altogether purposeless. A student need not completely miss out on the day, nor must she feel overwhelmed by a heavy workload. In the presence of beautiful sights and sounds, there is less sacrifice in working for hours at a time.

I walk out onto the reading porch, set down my books, and take a deep breath in as the door swings shut behind me. Today a light warm breeze plays through the redwood branches, and birdsongs stream in rivulets into my consciousness. The scent of bay leaves wafts by, and a thin fog hovers low over the bay. Taking this all in, I cannot help but feel simultaneously invigorated and calm. I know that out here I will have the patience and enthusiasm to work through my assignments.

1900

So, I suppose that in writing this piece I risk popularizing the reading porches and might thereby decrease my chances of securing a spot on them whenever I want. But I think that the problem of too many people desiring to work in a place open to the sensory input of the outdoors would be an excellent one, one that anyone who is concerned with the library and the well-being of those who use it would be eager to address.

The talented Sara Kaiser is a Stevenson College student majoring in cultural anthropology. She’s soon to receive her accreditation as a yoga instructor. She expects to graduate in spring 2014 and continue to pursue her interests in quality of life, the placebo effect, education, and philosophy.  
 
Writers Who Guide Readers
Librarian, historian, archivist: Writer

Lettie Bennett, Associate Director of Library Development

The University Library staff members are a multi-talented group. We include, of course, librarians, but we also claim archivists and historians. In support of teaching and learning, we write books, conduct and edit oral histories, curate exhibits, and create guides to library resources.

1911Historian Irene Reti is well known both on campus and in the broader Santa Cruz community for her direction of the UCSC Regional History Project . Her gentle manner enables her to put her interviewees at ease and her keen mind creates finely edited oral histories and the introductions to them. Oral histories, personal and therefore subjective accounts of history, are used in conjunction with other primary sources, as well as secondary sources, to gain insight into history. Since 1963 the University Library’s Regional History Project has been documenting the history of California’s Central Coast and the institutional history of UCSC. The most recent title featuring Irene’s work is Ocean Odysseys: Jack O'Neill, Dan Haifley, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (University Library, UC Santa Cruz, 2012).  

Irene’s talents extend to the founding of her own publishing imprint, HerBooks. Her moving account of her family’s history is The Keeper of Memory: A Memoir (Santa Cruz, CA: HerBooks, 2001).

Archivist/librarian/historian Nicholas Meriwether found a fertile field to explore when he attended his first 1952GratefulDead concert in 1985. With the Dead he found a way to extend his study of American bohemianism and literary culture into the twentieth century (much of his scholarship focuses on the nineteenth century). Nick is a prolific writer, organizer of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, and the archivist in charge of the Grateful Dead Archive. He is the curator of hugely successful and educational exhibits at the Brittingham Family’s Dead Central; the exhibit space at McHenry Library devoted to all things Dead. Nick’s most recent books are Studying the Dead (Scarecrow Press, 2013) and the coedited volume Pirates and Devils: William Gilmore Simms's Last Novels (USC Press, in press).
 1918

Not all the writing done by library staff becomes a book. Librarian Lucia Orlando’s study guide for the course "Textile Traditions of Oceania" is just one example of more than 100 online Research and Course Guides created by our writers who guide readers. 

 

McHenry Library

A Real Powerhouse

Lettie Bennett, Associate Director of Library Development

Today’s library buildings are thick with laptops, desktop computers, servers, printers, and cell phones being 1920charged. Thanks to the work of many people, solar panels atop the renovated and expanded McHenry Library provide 25% of the electricity needed to power the building through the year. Even better, the panels provide 70–100% of the power needed during periods of peak energy use.

The next 1921time you’re in McHenry Library, turn to your right just after entering. Mounted on the wall you’ll find a screen that provides real-time statistics on the building’s energy usage. It serves as another reminder to be mindful of our consumption.

The solar panels atop McHenry Library represent one more project to fulfill UCSC’s commitment to clean energy and our even bigger commitment to sustainability. Princeton Review’s Guide to 311 Green Colleges: 2011 cites UCSC’s accomplishments.

 
“Songs of Our Own” Exhibition Extended

Nicholas Meriwether, Grateful Dead Archivist

Due to public demand, we are pleased to announce that the current Grateful Dead Archive exhibition will be extended through the summer. “Songs of Our Own: The Art of the Grateful Dead” has attracted visitors from as far away as the Middle East and Japan to see more than 150 works of art by band members, fans, and artists who have been inspired by the band’s restless and wide-ranging muse.1922

One of the central qualities of the Grateful Dead phenomenon was the way it invited artistic participation, encouraging everyone to contribute in every imaginable medium, from handicrafts to fine art. That participation was democratic, too, extending from formally trained to avid amateur, and from band members and their inner circle to Deadheads even at the periphery of the scene.

“Songs of Our Own” reflects that range of work, with original works by Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann to etchings by Jerry Garcia, and dozens of fan contributions, from evocative crafts to professionally executed paintings. More than 1,000 visitors have viewed the exhibition already, but many more expressed interest in seeing it—and voiced their disappointment when we announced its closure. We’re delighted that we could postpone the new exhibit to give everyone a chance to visit this one.

Housed in the Brittingham Family Foundation’s Dead Central gallery, located on the main floor of McHenry Library, the exhibit is open during normal library hours and is free of charge. Come see this rare showcase of the ineffable artistic spirit that illuminated the Grateful Dead phenomenon and provided so much of its colorful, bohemian trappings.

 

Did you know?

The Library, regardless of whether it is used within one of its two buildings or accessed online, is the key place where students conduct the business of being students. Every year students access the Library more than a million times to explore, read, study, and collaborate with others.

Among the library resources students and scholars use are:1943

  • 2.2 million volumes, of which 710,000 are e-books
  • 364 databases, for example Web of Science
  • 28 group study rooms; 16 viewing & listening rooms
  • 117,000 physical course-reserve items and 750,000 online course-reserve items
  • 19 digitized special collections, consulted nearly 1 million times a year
  • Keyboard room for music composing and practice
  • Presentation practice room

 

2014 Spring  Issue #21

Editor: Lettie Bennett

Contributors: Elizabeth Cowell, Marion Taylor, Nick Meriwether, Irene Reti, Lettie Bennett, Sara Kaiser

Production: Linda Hunt

Copyediting and proofreading: Mark Engel

Photography:

Banner- McHenry Library Sign - Laura McClanathan

From the University Librarian – Photo of Elizabeth Cowell - Mary Vidnovic

Generous Spirits – Photo of Lauren and Paul Hall – Contributed by Paul Hall

                             Photo of Chuck Davis - Contributed by EHDD

Making and Documenting History at UCSC – UCSC Path Rain – Irene Reti

Music at the Library - Omar Bravo and Concepcion Arreola - Lettie Bennett

                                  Solmaaz Adeli - Contributed

“Fresh Air and Bird Conversations” – Novak Reading Porch- Mary Vidnovic

                                                        Sara Kaiser - Lettie Bennett

Writers Who Guide Readers – Irene Reti, Nicholas Meriwether, and Lucia Orlando                                                                                              – Staff contributed

McHenry Library - A Real Powerhouse – Aerial View of McHenry Library – Shon Bollack

                                                             Rooftop Panels with Marcus Thayer- Lettie Bennett

“Songs of Our Own” Exhibition Extended - Gary Houston

Did you Know? - Finals week at the Science and Engineering Library - Mary Vidnovic