The Library Corner - Fall 2024 Edition

IGS Library celebrated digitizing our 1,000th item in October, commemorating across Zoom and in person with the combined Internet Archive-IGSL team

November 25, 2024

IGS Library and Internet Archive Digitization Project aka LoCal Dig Project

The IGS Library (IGSL) kicked off its multi-year California Local Government Documents digitization project in earnest this Summer! With funding from the State of California, and in collaboration with the California State Library and UCLA, we have initiated a partnership with the Internet Archive (IA) to digitize what is anticipated to be a one-of-a-kind digital collection of more than ten thousand documents. The materials in the collection are from city, county, and regional government agencies from across California and offer insights into approaches to land use, local governance, public policy, and much more over time.

We are thrilled to now share the beginnings of this “publicly accessible, freely available, archived and preserved for the long-term digital collection of California local government information”, now searchable at: https://archive.org/details/igscalocalgovdocs. This digital collection is intended to provide transparency to the work of local governments over time and contribute to positive policy change for California communities.

Our amazing library team and student workers began to prepare nearly 5,000 items for digitization starting in Fall 2023. We established an onsite digitization lab where our Internet Archive colleagues carefully photograph items from the collection and match them with metadata descriptions so that they can be searched and found! Since mid-summer 2024 when we started digitizing, we’ve added 2,000 (and counting!) items to the Internet Archive’s discovery environment

Visit our LoCalDig Webpage where we will share our future milestones, behind the scenes insights, and collection highlights moving forward. And enjoy searching, finding, and conducting research with the initial offering of what will become a much larger collection of California local government information!

Play slideshow

Paul King, IGSL Library Supervisor, Digitization Operations Manager

IGS Library Supports Voter Participation for Nov. 5 2024 Election

The IGS Library supported the UCB community by providing reliable, fact-checked voter information and resources to promote informed participation in one of our nation’s most important democratic processes.

Fall 2024 IGS Library Exhibit: Voter Registration and Voter Information

One of IGS Library’s many goals is to provide authoritative information for California voters to support their participation in elections. Since there are two options to register to vote in California, either using a print or online form, the IGS library’s fall exhibit case featured an official paper voter registration form, a link to the official online form, and past California voter registration statistics.

In addition to the library exhibit, we featured a voter information station in the reading room. We provide information on voter registration, election deadlines, UCB University Health Service (UHS) guidance on managing election stress, the California Voter Bill of Rights, and how to access the online Go Bears, Go Vote! Voter Information Guide

The IGS Library created the Go Bears, Go Vote! guide to help UCB students, staff and faculty navigate voter registration, get ballot information, and understand where/when/how to cast their ballots, and how to find unofficial and official election results. The guide was shared widely across campus communication channels, like CalCentral and TeachNet, and was featured in the Office of the Chancellor’s Nov. 1 email on voting and election information.

CA Statewide Ballot Proposition Guides and Workshop

Library staff compiled key information about the ten propositions on the November 5 ballot to produce the IGS Library Ballot Prop Guides, a staple and tradition for every election since 2000. Prominent among this year's ballot measures were Proposition 6, which would have eliminated language from the state constitution allowing jails and prisons to impose involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment; Proposition 32 which would have raised the state minimum wage for certain classes of worker; and Proposition 36, which will allowing for certain crimes to be felony charges and increase sentences for certain drug and theft crimes.

IGS Library Director Kris Kasianovitz and Library Supervisor Paul King offered a noontime workshop to go over the process for placing measures on the ballot and discuss several state and local measures. Presentation materials are available online. The City of Berkeley had a number of contentious measures that were met with interest from enthusiastic participants. Included in the discussion were competing measures EE and FF, both of which would create new parcel taxes in the city for street, sidewalk, and bikeway repair.

Check out these books!

A Selection of Newly Acquired and Cataloged Materials available at the IGS Library and online.

Berinsky, A. J. (2023). Political rumors : why we accept misinformation and how to fight it. Princeton University Press. Available online and in print.

Breunig, C., & Kos ki, C. (2024). Means, motives, and opportunities : how executives and interest groups set public policy. Cambridge University Press.

Available online and in print.

Douglas, J. A. (2024). The Court v. the voters : the troubling story of how the Supreme Court has undermined voting rights. Beacon Press. Available online and in print.

Edwards, G. C. (2024). Why the Electoral College is bad for America / George C. Edwards III. (Fourth edition.). Cambridge University Press. Available online and in print.

Gleick, P. (2023). The three ages of water : prehistoric past, imperiled present, and a hope for the future. (First edition.). PublicAffairs, Hachette Book Group. Available in print.

Green, J. (2024). The rebels : Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the struggle for a new American politics. Penguin Press. Available online and in print.

Kahrl, A. W. (2024). The black tax : 150 years of theft, exploitation, and dispossession in America. The University of Chicago Press. Available online and in print.

League of California Cities, issuing body, & League of California Cities, issuing body. (2024). Open & public VI : a guide to the Ralph M. Brown Act. (Revised January 2024). Available in print.

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2023). Tyranny of the minority : why American democracy reached the breaking point. (First edition.). Crown. Available in print.

Madrid, M., & Bretón, M. (2024). The Latino century : how America’s largest minority is transforming democracy. (First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.). Simon & Schuster. / Available online and in print.

Pierson, P., & Schickler, E. (2024). Partisan nation : the dangerous new logic of American politics in a nationalized era. The University of Chicago Press. Available online and in print

Stearns, M. L. (2024). Parliamentary America : the least radical means of radically repairing our broken democracy. Johns Hopkins University Press. Available in print.

Vankin, J. (2024). How California works : building democracy in the Golden State / by Jonathan Vankin. California Local. Available in print.

Weber, J. G. (2024). Statistics for public policy : a practical guide to being mostly right (or at least respectably wrong). The University of Chicago Press. Available in print.

Young, N. J. (2024). Coming out Republican : a history of the Gay Right The University of Chicago Press. Available online and in print.

Topics

IGS Library topic page, News topic page