Library Employees

Yao Chen joined the UCSB Library in January 2020 and serves as the East Asian Studies & Global Studies Librarian. She has already accomplished a lot in the role despite the COVID-19 pandemic and abrupt shift to remote learning that happened shortly after she came on board.

In the last year alone, Yao: 

The UCSB Library recently welcomed a new curator to oversee its California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA), which houses primary research materials that document the lives and cultures of Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Chicanx/Latinx, and Indigenous populations throughout the state of California.

Laura Treat joined the UCSB Library in October in a new dual role as the Curator of Moving Image Collections and Librarian for Film & Media Studies.

After a career at UCSB spanning more than two decades, librarian Sherri Barnes retired at the end of January. She led the Library to the forefront of the movement for open access research as the Library's first Scholarly Communication Program Coordinator, her most recent role.

Throughout her time at the UCSB Library, Barnes has also served as subject librarian for Feminist Studies, LGBT Studies, and U.S. History, while also serving as Humanities Collection Coordinator.

UC Santa Barbara librarian Angela Chikowero has been selected to the 2020-21 cohort for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Open Education Leadership Program.

Lidia Uziel joined the UCSB Library on April 13 as the Associate University Librarian for Research Resources and Scholarly Communication. 

​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. 

Heather Silva recently joined the UCSB Library in the role of Senior Director of Development. No stranger to UCSB, she previously worked with Arts & Lectures for 15 years before she joined the Library team.

Use Google to search for “D.A.R.E.” (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), and the top 10 results include the organization’s official website, but also the video for the Gorrilaz song “DARE.”

Use Web of Science, an online subscription database available to UCSB students via the UCSB Library’s website, and you get a list of scholarly articles and studies about the drug-prevention program.

In a contentious political environment, it’s comforting to know that some people prefer to argue about Bach.

Cellists from Pablo Casals to Yo-Yo Ma have interpreted and played Johann Sebastian Bach’s six Cello Suites in very different ways, with music scholars analyzing and debating every nuance.

When UCSB student Joanna Hui, a cellist and Bach fan, earned a $750 grant to study Bach’s Cello Suites, she turned to the UCSB Library and its extensive collection of music recordings to actually hear performances of the Suites by famed cellists.