Dear Campus Community,
After more than 12 years as University Librarian, Steven Mandeville-Gamble will be retiring at the end of the academic year. Since his appointment in 2013, Steven has played a pivotal role in aligning UCR Library services with the evolving needs of our growing campus community and fostering a culture of creativity and innovation.
During his tenure, Steven led the development of two strategic plans for the UCR Library, in 2014 and 2023. Notable achievements from the 2014 plan include the Creat’R Lab makerspace, the Teaching and Learning Department, and the Research Services department. He also spearheaded efforts to strengthen digital scholarship on campus. The Digital Scholarship Working Group he formed in 2019 resulted in the introduction of key services to enhance research and teaching outcomes in this area, including GIS/geospatial analysis, computational text analysis, data visualization, and digital publishing.
Creativity and innovation were priorities under Steven’s leadership. He created the Digitization Services Unit, founded the Robotics Lab, and supported the 3DxP Lab, a workspace designed for the development of media and virtual reality projects.
Steven nurtured an experimentative environment to test new and evolving methodologies. This included a collaboration with the California Digital Library and Pixel Acuity on a proof-of-concept mass digitization project of the Klein Science Fiction Photograph collection, resulting in nearly 6,000 images from the 40,000-image collection being digitized and made available free of charge to scholars and fans around the world. He also launched initiatives to enhance study spaces in both library buildings, first in the Orbach Library in 2015 and then in the Rivera Library in 2017, using bold colors and innovative designs and creating different environments to meet different learning needs throughout both buildings.
Steven currently serves as Vice Chair of the UC Council of University Librarians, having previously served as Chair from 2017-2018. His contributions to the Association of Research Libraries include roles as Chair of the Research and Analytics Committee (2018-2019), Vice Chair/Chair-elect of the Assessment Committee (2017-2018), and a member of the Statistics Survey Revision Task Force (2022-2023). Before joining UCR, Steven held positions at George Washington University, North Carolina State University, and Stanford University.
We will conduct a national search for the next University Librarian, with the goal of having someone ready to take up the position when Steven retires in June. Please join me in congratulating Steven on his outstanding contributions to UCR and the field of academic librarianship and wishing him all the best in his retirement.