2022-2023 UCLA Library Impact Report: Focus on Preservation & Conservation
Welcome to the 2022-2023 UCLA Library Impact Report. At the heart of every collection, every service and every resource UCLA Library provides, you will find smart, dedicated librarians, staff and archivists who are always anticipating and planning for what’s next. Is it a new technology? A better user experience for students and faculty? Increased open access to collections? The answer, of course, is all of the above. The things that make UCLA unique — a broad range of disciplines, professional schools, as well as STEM programs and strengths in the arts, humanities and social sciences — are also why the need for excellent libraries is felt deeply at UCLA. I invite you to explore a selection of accomplishments made by the Library and the UCLA Film & Television Archive over the past academic year. Working together, we are moving knowledge forward on campus, in Los Angeles and beyond.
– Virginia Steel, Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian
Main Story
On the eve of retirement, Ginny Steel talks shop
After a decade as the Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian, Steel reflects on her journey to Westwood, her accomplishments and what’s to come.
Featured in New York Times: Chela Metzger, head of preservation and conservation, discusses how the Library is protecting materials in a changing environment.
Alumnus Cameron Jappe discusses his cataloging work on this LGBTQ+-focusedtalk show that now lives on the UCLA Film & Television Archive's YouTube channel.
The original 35mm film negative of Tran's film was rediscovered in Thailand and will be transferred to the UCLA Film & Television Archive for potential restoration.
The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, teamed with the Archive to restore the long-missing Fleischer cartoon and make it available online.
Variety: The films of legendary Greek writer-director Theo Angelopoulos received a two-month tribute presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive at Hammer Museum.
At the crossroads of societal strides towards equity and a struggle to preserve the past, Library staff crafted a Descriptive Practices Statement focused on an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. Enabled by a meticulously designed five-week study group, collaborative iteration and progressive pedagogical strategies, this work provides a potential path for the development of ethical and inclusive descriptive practices at other institutions. — Coauthored by Archivist Kelly Besser, published in the Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship.
Archer shares insights on Goodwin's screenplay, shown for the first time in Los Angeles since 1977 by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and lost African American TV.
The Library was delighted to welcome five new staff members to our Bruin community, and we invite you to learn about their goals, professional experiences and initial projects.
As technology rapidly evolves and so do research opportunities and data fields, the ethical issues that arise are often overlooked. Library staff carefully curated two workshops, “Ethical Considerations in Data” and “Data Ethics & Justice,” to start a conversation of privacy issues and racial disparities in a variety of fields, including healthcare, criminal justice and social media. This report reveals the result of these experiences, and how they hope to expand upon the expressed interest within the UC system to address this gap in curriculum. — Coauthored by Data Scientist Leigh Phan, published in IASSIST Quarterly.
The Library was delighted to welcome two new staff members to our Bruin community, and we invite you to learn about their goals, professional experiences and initial projects.
St. George News: "SLAM" (1998) —based on the life of Momolu Stewart — was restored in a collaboration between the UCLA Film & Television Archive and others.
A series of blogs, commissioned by the Archive for the January screening of the 1974 film, present three perspectives on the effects of the carceral system on women.
A newly preserved piece of TV ephemera from the UCLA Film & Television Archive collection features Bruce Lee as a rising star on ABC’s "The Green Hornet" (1966-67).
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Summer Writing and Research Training Program supports writing and research skills development for BIPOC, LGBTQIA and disabled student researchers interested in pursuing careers in academia. Since its inception, librarians have been a central part of instruction team, leading a cohort of undergraduate students selected for an intensive six-week research and writing experience. This report details the methods and impact of this program in the hopes that other institutions develop similar opportunities. — Coauthored by Librarian and Collections Coordinator Simon Lee and Science Librarian Renee Romero, published in Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies & Best Practice, Volume 2.
The Red Shoes is among over 100 UCLA Film & Television Archive restoration and preservation projects made possible thanks to the support of The Film Foundation.
A Q&A with Fox Maxy, whose feature film "Gush" (2023) opened the UCLA Film & Television Archive series "Imagining Indigenous Cinema: New Voices, New Visions."
The Library was delighted to welcome three new staff members to our Bruin community, and we invite you to learn about their goals, professional experiences and initial projects.
Columbus Dispatch: Todd Wiener, motion picture curator, reflects on the UCLA Film & Television Archive's recent tour, which screened at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus.
The Archive's summer lineup showcased a diverse array of offerings, from early works combining electronic music and moving images to contemporary feature-length films.
Forcing the language of artifacts into Latin-based languages simply for ease diminishes the accessibility and equal access of our resources. Partnering with OCLC WorldCat, UCLA began restoring Cyrillic script in native Russian artifacts and looks to expand these restoration efforts with even more challenging and smaller language groups. This paper provides a framework of the lengthy and complicated process in the hopes other institutions will embark on similar projects. — Coauthored by Cyrillic Catalog Librarian Peter V. Fletcher, published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly.
The Library was delighted to welcome seven new staff members to our Bruin community, and we invite you to learn about their goals, professional experiences and initial projects.
Josslyn Jeanine Luckett illuminates the life and work of UCLA-trained filmmaker Betty Yao-Jung Chen, whose 1970s student films are online via the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
In this paper, the UCLA Library’s online open educational initiative known as Writing Instruction + Research Education (WI+RE) is critically examined to demonstrate how open educational resources can be improved to center accessibility. Referencing antiracist, feminist and disability researchers, strategies are presented for building instructional resources and teams that are rooted in principles of accessibility, universal design and disability justice. — Coauthored by Research and Instruction Librarian Salma Abumeeiz, published in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.
Acknowledgements
Library Communications Ariane Bicho, Courtney Hoffner, Suzy Lee, Sally Márquez, Jennifer Rhee, Marisa Soto Feature Writer and Editor Abigail Siatkowski Illustrations Brett Affrunti(opens in a new tab)Student Assistants Willa Needham, Katy Nicholas, Mia Sadowski,Abigail Siatkowski Special Thanks Software Development and Library Systems team, UCLA Newsroom and everyone at the UCLA Library and UCLA Film & Television Archive for the opportunity to share your work.
Toward ethical and inclusive descriptive practices in UCLA Library Special Collections: A case study
A model for data ethics instruction for non-experts
Writing and research training program: A UCLA campus partnership to support BIPOC, LGBTQIA and disabled student researchers
An automated Cyrillic script project to increase non-Latin access in the catalog: Notes, observations and conclusions
The limits of inclusion in open access: Accessible access, universal design and open educational resources