UCLA University Librarian

This post focuses on Jacqueline Hoang, another recipient of the University Librarian’s Undergraduate Fellowship.  Jacqueline is in the creative writing honors program and is working with faculty research mentor Frederick Burwick. 

Jacqueline’s thesis project is not only to write a play but to produce and direct it as well.  As she notes in her personal statement, she hopes the UCLA Library will help her address her lack of experience in playwriting, producing, and directing.  “Since I began I have become reliant upon my local library for things as small as formatting a script to the larger issues of capturing an audience. … Though the work load seems heavy already, I am determined to complete the project successfully with the generous help from the libraries of UCLA.” 

Jacqueline, we hope to be in the front row on opening night!

As part of International Open Access Week activities and programs at UCLA, the UCLA library hosted an array of programs highlighting the growing global movement toward open and public access to scholarly research and publishing.  One of the programs was a session on The Google Books Settlement: Issues and Options featured Jonathan Band.   The YouTube video available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4jAqyDKVSs captures the Q and A session.  

Jonathan Band helps shape the laws governing intellectual property and the Internet through a combination of legislative and appellate advocacy. He has represented clients with respect to the drafting of the DMCA, database protection legislation, the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, and other federal and state statutes. He complements this legislative advocacy by filing amicus briefs in significant cases related to these provisions. An adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, Band has written extensively on intellectual property and the Internet including the article on the importance of faculty and scholars retaining their copyright  available here . http://www.policybandwidth.com/doc/20080523-PublishANDPerishFinal.pdf.   Band received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Yale Law School. Prior to establishing his own law firm in May 2005, he worked at the Washington, D.C., office of Morrison & Foerster LLP for 20 years, including 13 years as a partner.

The UCLA Library recently celebrated the launching of a partnership with the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. This exciting new outreach and collection-building partnership promises to benefit the Mazer Archives, the UCLA Library, and scholars around the world in many ways.  It makes the Archives’ collections more broadly accesible to the public; it increases the Library’s holdings and supports our collection-building efforts in this important area of social and cultural history; and it expands the pool of primary source materials available to researchs and to the community.

 Our partnership grew out of a project intiated by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women to inventory, organize, preserve, and digitize several of Mazer’s key Los angeles-themed collections.  So we owe a particular debt of thanks to the center’s director, Katheen McHugh and Associate Director April DeStefano.

 In this order left to right Kathleen McHugh, Director UCLA Center for the Study of Women Ann Giagni, President of the Board, June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive Honorable Sheila J. Kuehl, former California State Senator Honorable Abbe Land, Mayor of West Hollywood UCLA University Librarian Gary E. Strong April De Stefano, Assistant Director UCLA Center for the Study of Women

For the news release, please consult:

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/mazer-partnership-112038.aspx

The link to the digital collection is:

http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/mazer/

Today’s post features an excerpt from the personal statement of Sophia Yishu Gu, another recipient of the University Librarian’s Undergraduate Fellowship.  Sophia is a senior in the English honors program, and her faculty research mentor is Gordon Kipling. 

“‘ What is research, but a blind date with knowledge?’ Will Henry’s insightful remark encapsulates the hopeful excitement and delight that every researcher feels as they explore the endless rows of library bookselves, fingering through the discerning words of those who came before them.  Already a bona fide bibliophile, I’ve spent a number of such blind dates at campus libraries under the name of literary research.  Aware of the amazing opportunities at a rsearch institution like UCLA, getting involved with academic research has been one of my main priorities as a student at UCLA.”

What a wonderful approach to research, Sophia!

The third of my series of posts on recipients of the University Librarian’s Undergraduate Fellowship features Lisa Douglass.  Lisa, a senior in the creative writing honors program, is working with faculty research mentor Mona Simpson. 

Lisa’s senior thesis will take the form of a young adult novel; thus, in her personal statement, she explains that her “…research will include searching psychological ramifications of severe bullying in teenagers.  I will search the special collections to see if there are any resources in place for teens in the school systems of Los Angeles.  I will focus my studies on violent crimes committed in reaction to severe bullying and sibling abuse. … I am confident that this is something people need to know about and am convinced that my research will make a change in the current unforgiving nature of the system as it now excludes victims of this type of abuse.” 

Lisa, I’m awed by your passion and commitment; we look forward to working with you!

 UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has secured funding to restore the opening hours of Night Powell, the extended hours reading room located in the Powell Library Building, as of Monday, November 2.  Hours are posted on at the following link:  

http://www.library.ucla.edu/about/876.cfm

You can read the Bruin’s editorial about Night Powell online at:http://beta.dailybruin.com/articles/2009/11/5/night-powells-return-triumph/

Check out Jake Nadal’s overview of our preservation program.

http://www.libraryworks.com/infocus/1009/in_focus_1009.htm

The UCLA Library has received a National Leadership Grant of $249,342 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the creation of the “Next Generation” Sheet Music Consortium. The project will be led by the UCLA Digital Library Program in collaboration with our partners at the Indiana University Digital Library Program and will include participation by staff of several units within the UCLA Library, including the Cataloging and Metadata Center and Library Information Technology. Metadata and technical development activities will be divided between UCLA and Indiana University.

During the grant period—November 2009 to October 2011—the UCLA Library  and Indiana University (IU) Library will develop tools and services to meet the needs of both data providers (libraries, museums, historical societies, and other curators of sheet music collections) and users of sheet music (musicologists, performers, cultural and art historians, etc.) as identified from several needs assessments carried out during an earlier IMLS planning grant. Tools and services developed in the project will enable institutions with limited technical knowledge (e.g. public libraries, smaller college libraries, museums, etc.) to participate in the metadata aggregation service of the Sheet Music Consortium (http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic) and will provide users with a richer set of services, including the ability to contribute structured metadata to the collection, write annotations, and link to related materials of interest across consortium collections. In addition, cataloging guidelines and tools will be developed to support and encourage standardized descriptive practices and facilitate merging and downloading of metadata records from the consortium’s Web site.

The two main thrusts of the project—the lowering of barriers to participation by organizations with fewer resources, and the provision of metadata tools for both end users and collection builders—have the potential to position the Consortium as a major resource for all types of sheet music users.

About the Consortium

The Sheet Music Consortium is a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music using the Open Archives Initiative: Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI:PMH) and the development of a rich set of innovative services as a test bed for digital library development. Current members include UCLA, which hosts Consortium services, Indiana University, Duke University, and Johns Hopkins University.

I continue my series of posts featuring statements from recipients of the University Librarian’s Undergraduate Fellowship with an excerpt from the statement of Jenae Cohn.  Jenae is also a senior in the English honors program; her faculty research mentor is Elizabeth DeLoughrey. 

“The university library provides unparalleled resources that have elevated the quality of past research projects and continue to add depth and dimension to my English Departmental Honors undergraduate thesis.  The extensive UCLA library collection has guided my initial development of ideas in past projects and, in the future, I intend to continue incorporating library resources into my research for further insight, analysis, and refinement of ideas.” 

Thank you, Jenae.  We look forward to supporting your work!

UCLA Office of the Chancellor

Across campus, faculty, staff and students are experiencing the consequences of an unprecedented reduction in state support to the University of California system.  The effects include larger class sizes, reduced library hours, and faculty and staff salary reductions; student fee increases are looming.  These are difficult times, and I am deeply grateful for your patience, understanding and dedication as we make the often painful decisions necessary to ensure UCLA’s continued excellence.

The measures we have taken are helping to close a 2009-10 budget shortfall of more than $150 million.  But we still must make long-term, structural changes so that our academic programs and campus operations align with new funding realities.  While we continue to advocate strongly for state funding, we must face reality and plan for a future that relies less on volatile state support, which is not expected to improve next year.

Currently, we are conducting a thorough review of our academic programs.  Led by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh, working closely with the Academic Senate, the review is intended to streamline majors, reduce unnecessary units and courses, and focus on helping students graduate in a timely manner.  Preliminary reports from the deans are due in January.  The result will certainly be some shrinkage of UCLA’s academic programs.

At the systemwide level, the Commission on the Future of UC is looking at long-term issues.  The commission’s charge is to develop a new vision for the university that affirms its core values of excellence and access while addressing financial challenges from declining state funding.

The issue of student fees is especially emotional.  As you know, President Yudof has proposed two fee increases, one effective winter quarter and another effective in fall 2010.  The UC Board of Regents is scheduled to act on the proposal at its November meeting at UCLA.

While I don’t like the idea of raising the cost of education, I believe fee increases are necessary to maintain UCLA’s academic quality.  Without the additional revenue generated by higher fees, our academic programs would suffer irreparably.  It’s important to emphasize that approximately one of every three dollars in new fee increases would go toward financial aid programs to assist the students and families most in need.  At UCLA, generating revenue for scholarships and fellowships is our top fundraising priority.  The goal of our Bruin Scholars Initiative is to raise $500 million for this purpose by June 2013.

Many of you have expressed frustration, and even anger, about these circumstances, as well as your concern about the future of UCLA.  I share your concern; this is a difficult process for all of us.  As we work together, it’s important to remember that we all want the same thing—to maintain academic excellence and the access that our mission as a public university requires of us.

I am grateful for the sacrifices you are making to help the campus through this process, and my administration is committed to sharing information as it becomes available and consulting with you during the decision-making process.

As I’ve stated in earlier communications, I firmly believe that UCLA will emerge from this challenging time stronger and of even greater benefit to students and society.

For additional details about the budget challenges we face and the steps we’ve taken, I encourage you to read this new Q&A with Steve Olsen, vice chancellor for budget, finance and capital programs.

Sincerely,

Gene D. Block
Chancellor

 NOTE:  I particularly encourage each staff member to review the links and the question and answer update provided herein.