Gifts & Donors

UCSB Library is creating a new Arts Library by bringing together the Music and Art & Architecture Collections into a modernized space on the main Library’s 1st floor Mountain Side. 

The Music Library will permanently close to the public starting Monday, August 5. 

UCSB Library has announced the recipients of the sixth annual Library Award for Undergraduate Research (LAUR).

The University of California has been awarded a grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the development of a UC-wide network of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs). This award leverages the work of the Open Source Program Office at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) and funds a collaboration of UC campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego with UCSC to promote open source research, teaching, and public service. 

UCSB Library has been awarded a $349,993 grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the American Record Corporation (ARC) Access Initiative of the American Discography Project.

The UCSB Library has acquired the Cedric J. and Elizabeth P. Robinson Archive, a collection of research and teaching papers, ephemera and digital materials related to the careers of the Robinsons, renowned for their seminal scholarship and activism that had wide-ranging influence at UC Santa Barbara, in academia, and across many public arenas. The archive was donated by Elizabeth P. Robinson and their daughter, Najda Ife Robinson-Mayer.

The UC Santa Barbara Library’s recorded sound collections are vast and diverse: they include over 400,000 recordings representing voices throughout history, from intimate home recordings from the 1890s, to rare commercial recordings on wax cylinders and 78 rpm discs, to unique radio broadcasts. Thanks to a generous donation by alumni Mark Maxson ‘75 and Mary Burchill ‘76, the collection now includes a unique set of recordings made by California author and Nobel Prize laureate John Steinbeck (1902–1962).

The UC Santa Barbara Library is excited to announce that it has recently received a gift from antiquarian bookseller and philanthropist Kenneth Karmiole ‘68 to establish The Kenneth Karmiole Annual Lecture Series on Religion in American Life. This is Karmiole’s third endowment established at the Library, following his Kenneth Karmiole Endowment for Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship.

UCSB Library is creating a new Arts Library by bringing together the Music and Art & Architecture Collections into a modernized space on the Library’s 1st floor Mountain Side where the Art & Architecture Collection is currently housed. As part of the project, the Music Library collection and services will be moved from the Music Building to the main Library. 

The Art & Architecture space – inclusive of collections and study space – will be closed to the public for construction starting Monday, April 1. 

For 18 years, the UCSB Reads program has brought the campus and Santa Barbara communities together to read a common book that explores compelling interdisciplinary issues of our time. The program has become a mainstay in campus education and outreach, with book topics tackling issues as diverse as climate change, mass incarceration, Buddhism and artificial intelligence, among others.

1. It is the foundation of a successful research university

UCSB Library is the driving force that fuels research and innovation, serving students and faculty across disciplines with valuable resources and instruction.