Donor Support Accelerates Growth and Digitization of Library Archives and Special Collections

A recent gift from award-winning Bay Area producer, director, and journalist gayle k. yamada gives an important boost to the UC Davis Library’s capacity to preserve and digitize unique archival materials in its collections.

One portion of yamada’s gift endows a fund for the library’s Archives and Special Collections to digitize unique archival materials, including correspondence, paper records, photographs, and rare books, and make them publicly available online.

The other portion establishes an endowment in memory of her mother — the UC Davis Library Special Collections Fund for Japanese and Japanese-American History in honor of Kiyoko Nishida Yamada — which supports the acquisition, collection, and maintenance of archives related to Japanese and Japanese-American history, a topic close to yamada’s heart.

yamada, a Davis resident, was inspired to make a gift to the library because she believes education is critical to so many people’s lives. While she earned her Ph.D. from UC Merced, she was able to take advantage of the richness of UC Davis’ library and appreciated especially the library staff’s expertise. And it is not only the library she appreciates; she takes advantage of the many lectures and cultural offerings of UC Davis.

“This is my way of giving back,” she said. “It is how I would like to honor my mother, who valued education and was proud of her heritage. I hope the materials acquired and maintained through this fund will serve as a legacy that enriches the lives of those she will never know.”

yamada’s gift bears fruit

One of the first archival collections the library will digitize with yamada’s support is the Benjamin and Mayon Ichinose Papers, part of the library’s world-renowned wine collections. Dr. Benjamin Ichinose was a noted Japanese-American wine collector who was widely regarded as having one of the finest wine collections in the country during his lifetime.

The Ichinoses developed a state-of-the-art cellar in their Bay Area home to store their massive wine collection, which eventually reached approximately 55,000 bottles. Each room was refrigerated at specific temperatures designed to house specific varieties of wine at particular points in their aging process. Dr. Ichinose consulted with professors in UC Davis’ Viticulture and Enology department during the cellar’s construction, particularly Dr. James “Jim” Guyman, who had performed extensive research on the optimal temperatures to age wine.

“Japanese Americans have made a tremendous impact on food and wine in California and around the world. gayle’s gift will help us foreground their stories and make our distinctive collections on Asian culinary history available to researchers at UC Davis and beyond,” said Audrey Russek, who oversees the library’s food and wine collections.

The power of community giving

“I hope my gift is just the beginning, and will inspire others to give,” said yamada, noting that alumnus Chef Martin Yan recently donated his collection to the library. “Martin and I worked together for more than a decade, and it is an honor to know that my gift will help enable his collection to get digitized.”

Chef Yan is a widely recognized leader in the Asian American community and food culture. Best known for his long-running PBS show, “Yan Can Cook,” he is an ambassador for Asian food and culture who has spent a lifetime bringing people of all walks of life together throughout the world.

Another collection that will benefit from yamada’s gift is that of the late Isao Fujimoto. “Isao exemplified community,” said yamada. “His commitment to sustainable community development and rural studies makes his work significant.”

Fujimoto was an educator, a senior lecturer at UC Davis, and a community activist. “He was a gentle soul, always interested in whatever I had to say,” yamada recalled. “Like my mother, he was incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, during World War II, so I have that tie to him as well. And we both got our Ph.D.’s later in life!”

As more donors contribute, yamada hopes that the aggregate power of those donations, combined with her own gift, will empower the library to digitize collections like these and others that are significant components of the library’s growing collections on the Northern California Food Movement.

“We are grateful for gayle’s support in creating these endowments, and we share her conviction about both the importance of representing diverse voices and communities in archival collections, and that broad digital access to those collections is the future,” said William Garrity, university librarian and vice provost of digital scholarship. “Above all, we appreciate her vision for how her own gift can inspire others to give.”

Those who wish to contribute to preservation and digitization of the library’s rare archival materials can give now to the Library Digitization Fund or the Library Archival Processing Fund. To learn more about how to make a larger contribution, pledge, or planned estate gift, please contact Seromi Park, associate director of development, at spark@ucdavis.edu.