Gifts & Donors

Art power couple Mary Heebner and Macduff Everton have been long-time contributors to Santa Barbara's creative economy. Over the last 30 years, their travels around the world have been the source of inspiration for photojournalism, visual anthropology, papermaking, painting, published books, and more, many examples of which are currently represented in the archives of the UCSB Library's Special Research Collections (SRC).

Dr. Shirley Kennedy’s motivation to preserve her personal archives began with a flood of rare Southern California rain, which seeped its ruinous way into her materials documenting the 1998 UCSB visit of Regents Scholar Fan Shengqi, a Chinese jazz musician.

The American Radio Archives, one of the world’s largest and most valuable collections of radio broadcasting will soon become part of the UC Santa Barbara Library’s Department of Special Research Collections.

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.

1. Because it is the foundation of a successful research university

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

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.