UCLA Library

Leganto allows course instructors to create lists and collections of materials and monitor student use in the new campus learning management system, Bruin Learn. Materials added to lists in Leganto can include articles, books, videos and other media, and can consist of Library resources, other online materials, items for purchase from the campus bookstore, original work by faculty, and more. Michelle will demonstrate how course instructors can get started with Leganto and discuss how Library staff can support its adoption and use.

This presentation will discuss the story of five books looted by Nazis from the Jewish Community Library in Prague during World War II that were recently discovered in the UCLA Library. Curators in Prague found four of these volumes using the HathiTrust database, after which UCLA began a repatriation process. A brief overview of the historical context of the confiscation and destruction of millions of books and other cultural items by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 is explored, as are the post-war efforts for restitution and repatriation by the victorious allies. As the digitization of academic library holdings progresses, the probability of more looted material being uncovered in academic libraries worldwide increases. But how did they end up there and what should libraries do with them once discovered? Scholarly literature describing similar experiences of academic libraries was not found. This case study is one example that can open a dialog to address the issue.

Preliminary findings from a new study of UCLA students' reading format attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic will be presented. A study of UCLA's study of students' remote learning attitudes in spring 2020 did not include one question related to reading electronically or the library, and this study fills that gap to reveal that most students’ attitudes towards reading in e-format did not improve during COVID. It is possible that the increased amount of time spent on their computers during remote learning in general caused a screen fatigue that lowered their ability and desire to read their course readings online.

University Librarian Ginny Steel welcomes attendees to the second annual Library Research Forum and provides brief opening remarks. 

This presentation will provide an overview of a longer-term research project I'm working on, examining the history and complexities of script collections in U.S. libraries and archives. The talk will include a brief history of screenplay writing and publishing, historic and ongoing collection management considerations, the creative and research uses of scripts, and the challenges of classification, rights, and access in library, archival, and online environments.

The impacts of open educational resources (OERs) are both well-documented and far-reaching. However, open educational practices should not be evangelized or held beyond critique. Approaching OERs as an inherent good, and evangelizing open access and open education in general, limits our ability to improve our approaches and practices. Without mitigating the positive outcomes of OERs - including reduced textbook costs, readily available knowledge platforms, and open research - we problematize the commonly held assumption that open resources are necessarily more accessible and equitable. Drawing on writing from disability scholars and disability justice advocates, we explore the relationship between access and accessibility as it applies to open educational resources. By critically examining UCLA Library’s own open educational resource initiative, Writing Instruction + Research Education (WI+RE), we mobilize a disability justice framework to consider how open access (OA) and accessibility might be reconciled for the creation of better OERs.

UCLA Library Special Collections’ “Collection of Personal Narratives, Manuscripts, and Ephemera about the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic” (Manuscript Collection no. 509, or Biomed.0509) was built from scratch beginning a decade before the pandemic’s centenary. In years BCE (Before COVID Era), the collection was used by researchers and classes. During the COVID-19 Era, we shared content with newspapers and developed a public lecture for audiences ranging from UCLA’s Powell Society to the New York Academy of Medicine. This talk will profile the collection’s development, share lessons learned from its use, and consider and seek suggestions on next steps in exhibition, digitization, and curriculum integration.

Books bound to be written in by their owners have their own history, and believe it or not, many patents filed in the US patent office. Take a look at the material culture of bound structures in a whole new way.