1954 Campus Library Named for the Mexican-American Author Tomás Rivera
900 University Ave, Riverside, CA 92521
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
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Free
Free to enter; some collections require campus credentials.
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Modern university library with elevators between floors.
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Est. 1954 · One of UC Riverside's five founding buildings · Renamed in 1985 for novelist and Chancellor Tomás Rivera · Home of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy
The College of Letters and Science Library at UC Riverside opened in December 1953 and was operational when classes began at UCR in February 1954. According to the UCR Library's own history page, the building was one of the original five structures on the new Riverside campus and was designed by Graham Latta and Carl Denny. The library was renamed in 1985 to honor Tomás Rivera, the Mexican-American novelist, poet, and UCR Chancellor.
The library has undergone three major renovations: in 1963, in 1968, and most recently in 1998. The newer additions are integrated with the original 1953 wing, which remains the part of the building most frequently referenced in campus folklore. The library houses UCR's Special Collections and University Archives and the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, one of the largest collections of its kind in the world.
Sources
The Tomás Rivera Library's most enduring ghost story, documented by the UCR campus paper The Highlander, the Britannica Blog's library ghosts series, and Angels and Ghosts, centers on a former employee tradition has named Carmen. According to the Highlander, Carmen reportedly worked at the library and, in life, hid in an elevator-shaft service area during work to drink unobserved. After leaving work intoxicated one night, she died in a car crash. Local tradition holds that she returned to the library because it was the place she felt safest.
Campus reports describe activity concentrated on the older first and second floors at night, including poltergeist phenomena: a refrigerator door reported to open and close on its own, door handles that shake without a person on the other side, and an incident sometimes called the Broom Incident of the 1980s in which staff witnessed a broom move across a closed room. The UCR Library and the campus Paranormal Research Society have, in some years, held organized tours during the Halloween season to share the lore with students.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk through the original 1954 library wing on the UC Riverside campus, one of the institution's five founding buildings. The first and second floors are the most-frequently cited in the campus's long-running Carmen folklore.
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