Gifts & Donors

A Glass Half Full: Alumnus Victor Geraci discusses the Viticulture Collection, his new book, and the future of Santa Barbara wine

If you ask Manuscript Curator and Religious Studies Librarian David Gartrell to tell you about his favorite piece in the UC Santa Barbara Library American Religions Collection (ARC), he will tell you it’s impossible to pick just one. He has a point. Since its inception in 1968, the ARC has become a unique and thoughtfully curated collection with an expansive variety of photos, recordings, writings, and other religious ephemera.

Over the years, and under the leadership of curator David Seubert, the UC Santa Barbara Library Performing Arts Collection has grown to become one of the most notable collections of its kind, containing over 300,000 historical sound recordings and over 150 archival collections.

A team of researchers at the UCSB Library recently finished an exciting enhancement project to the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR), an online database of over 314,000 master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era.

What do Fidel Castro, Sid Vicious, JonBenet Ramsey, Larry Rivers, William Burroughs, and Benazir Bhutto have in common? They are all subjects of investigative reporting by the award-winning American journalist Ann Louise Bardach.

UC Santa Barbara Library Special Research Collections was given an impressive collection of theatrical Shakespeare recordings last fall, a legacy of scholar and author, Dr. Robert J. O’Brien, who accumulated the collection over his many years of study, collection, and travel.

UCSB Health & Wellness has partnered with UCSB Library to fund and grow the Well-being Resources Collection, which has become increasingly important as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect mental health. 

Nearly 80 new titles are now accessible at UCSB Library, of which about half are e-books and half are print books. 

Dalip Singh Saund made history in 1957 when he became the first Asian American, the first Indian American, and the first Sikh elected to the United States Congress, serving California’s 29th District in the House of Representatives until 1963. His papers were recently donated to UCSB Library Special Research Collections so researchers can study his life and impact on history. 

Mitchell Kriegman, a screenwriter, novelist, director, performer, and producer known for creating the acclaimed Nickelodeon and Disney series, Clarissa Explains it All, Bear in the Big Blue House, and The Book of Pooh, among others, is donating his papers to UC Santa Barbara Library.

​Meet Stewart Engart

Since the UCSB Library launched a project in 2002 to record and digitize its Cylinder Audio Archive, the archive has grown to become the largest online collection of downloadable historic sound recordings.