Water Resources Collections and Archives
| Established | 1958 |
|---|---|
| Location | Riverside, San Bernardino, California |
| Access and use | |
| Population served | University of California, State of California, and the public. |
| Website | http://library.ucr.edu/wrca/ |
The Water Resources Collections and Archives (formerly known as the Water Resources Center Archives) (WRCA) is located on the campus of the University of California Riverside (UCR), and is jointly administered by the UCR College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) and the UCR Libraries. WRCA was part of the University of California Center for Water Resources (WRC) that was established and funded in 1957 by a special act of the California State Legislature and was designated the California Water Research Institute by a federal act in 1964.
WRCA was formed in 1958 as the research component of WRC. At that time, the WRC was a system wide unit that was administered by the University of California Office of the President, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR).
WRCA is both an archive with unpublished manuscript collections and a library with published materials. The collection was established to collect unique, hard-to-find, technical report materials pertaining to all aspects of water resources and supply in California and the American West, as well as to serve as a resource for the University of California and the people of the state. The collection also contains some materials pertaining to water resources on the national and international level.
Although WRCA staff began collecting materials in 1958, the library portion of the collection includes select materials dating from the late 19th century, with exceptional strength in its coverage of California water history from the early 1900s to the present. This extensive coverage is due to the generous donations of archival and print materials from UC professors, hydrologists, the staff of various government agencies and private donors.
On October 2, 2009, ANR announced that WRCA would have a "new academic home" by June 30, 2010 and that WRC would close on December 31, 2009. A public and political outcry in support of WRCA staff, services, and collections to remain funded at the UC Berkeley campus emerged following the ANR announcement.
On July 16, 2010, ANR announced that WRCA would move to southern California, relocating its valuable research collection to UC Riverside, and entering into a collaborative partnership with the Water Resources Institute at CSU San Bernardino.
WRCA is the premier library of its kind in the United States, specifically collecting contemporary and historic material, technical reports, and gray literature on water resources development in California and the West. The collection includes national and international material as well. Reports, pamphlets, and unpublished materials from federal, state and local government agencies, other federal Water Research Institutes, non-governmental organizations and consultants form the heart of the collection. WRCA's archival materials are discoverable in the Online Archive of California. WRCA's collection is cataloged in OCLC and is searchable in UC Riverside's Scotty catalog and in the University of California's Melvyl catalog.
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