Welcome to the Spring 2023 issue of From the Archives, the UCSB Library’s newsletter highlighting all things related to Special Research Collections (SRC). SRC houses and preserves rare and valuable items including primary source materials like personal journals and papers, photographs, art, audio-visual materials, and more. These materials exist in SRC not only for the purposes of preservation, research, and teaching, but also because they tell the stories of our collective history.
In this issue, we review new acquisitions to SRC, including the papers and personal ephemera of European opera star Gitta Alpar; journal archives from Mashey Bernstein, UC Santa Barbara lecturer and alumnus; offer a view into Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration that highlights, amplifies, and supports global indigenous and people of color; and celebrate Lina-Maria Murillo for receiving the Ken Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship.
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A Star for the Ages: The Gitta Alpar Papers
The Library’s Performing Arts Collection is now the home of the Gitta Alpar Papers, a collection of personal correspondence, photographs and other ephemera of the Hungarian-born opera and film star of the 1920s and 30s. Alpar’s incredible story of fame, heartbreak, and once-in-a-lifetime talent has all of the makings of a cinematic blockbuster, yet to contemporary American audiences, including her own descendants, her accomplishments are largely unknown.
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Mashey Bernstein’s Journals
Retired UCSB lecturer and alumnus Mashey Bernstein '77 has donated his personal journals to the UCSB Library’s Department of Special Research Collections. The journals provide a time capsule into the Jewish, LGBTQ+, and social and academic communities in Santa Barbara from 1962 to 1994.
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Dignidad Rebelde: Combining Art, Activism, and Accessibility
Bay Area artists Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza created Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration that uses art to highlight community struggles, amplify stories, and support global indigenous and people of color movements. In collaboration with Angel Diaz, Curator of the California Ethnic & Multicultural Archives (CEMA) at the Library, Cervantes and Barraza archived a wide selection of their prints at the Library.
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Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship
The Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship committee is pleased to announce that Lina-Maria Murillo, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies and History at the University of Iowa has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 fellowship.
The fellowship will enable Murillo to visit SRC to access collections in areas related to her research for an upcoming monograph, "Borderlands of Abortion Care,” a historical analysis of abortion, demographic change, and white supremacy, its confluence and politics from the 1850s to the present. Among others, Murrillo will explore the papers of Garrett Hardin, an ardent population control activist, as well as the unique archive of Marie Carmichael Stopes, an early birth control activist in the US, among others.
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It Takes Two to Tango: Findings from the Astor Piazzolla Archive
On May 23, the Library hosted a virtual conversation between Grammy award-winning musician, composer, and tango expert Pablo Aslan and David Seubert, Curator for the Performing Arts for UCSB Library's Special Research Collections, moderated by Alejandra Folguera.
With support from the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation, the Library brought in tango expert Pablo Aslan as a consultant to visit the collection and provide expert assistance on the Library’s unique collection of Astor Piazzolla materials. Aslan’s expertise as a composer, researcher, and educator enabled him to identify unique and important items for digitization, and provide supplementary information to the existing finding guide.
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Miss an issue? Find our previous From the Archives newsletters here.
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Thank you for staying connected with the Library! Our Department of Special Research Collections relies heavily on the support and generosity of our donors. Please consider making a gift to support SRC today!
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