The Interdisciplinary Research Collaboratory is UCSB's home for data-centric research support. The Collaboratory team offers expert guidance on access to the Library's data collections, and supports software tools to analyze and visualize quantitative, qualitative, and spatial data. We also collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to use these collections and tools for teaching and research.

Located in the newly constructed section of the Library, the Collaboratory is a hub for campus-wide, data-intensive research and teaching projects.  The Collaboratory is also the access point for the Library's spatial and social science data collections.

Come visit us on the 2nd floor, Mountain Side, of the UCSB Library, rooms 2322 and 2324.

Collections and Services

Collaboratory staff help UCSB faculty, students, and employees access the Library's data sets; find and evaluate open access data sources; use software and other research tools; and engage in cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The Library's Data Curation team also provides support to the Collaboratory. Beyond Collaboratory services, the Data Curation Program supports active and ongoing management of data produced by UCSB researchers.

Equipment in the Collaboratory

Nine high-powered workstations are connected to 32-inch 4K monitors and come with full suites of statistical, spatial, and graphics software. Researchers working from these machines can project their work onto 4K 80" display or LCD projector in this room.  On the 'conference' side of the Collab, an identical workstation connects to two 80-inch 4K displays. Laptops, phones, and tablet can also be wirelessly connected to the displays or projector using the Clickshare application.  A full list of software applications is here.

Two Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets are available for use.  We have Blender and the Unity Engine available to develop immersive 3d content.

The Collaboratory team is interested in supporting current research and teaching throughout campus. Suggestions for additional software are welcome from UCSB affiliates.