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Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.

Peek behind-the-scenes of our chocolate factory to get a high-level overview of the chocolate-making process, from bean to bar! This event is great for families, corporate groups, bachelorette weekends, and anyone new to chocolate or curious about where their food comes from. You’ll get to taste warm, flowing dark chocolate from our tempering machine, and you’ll get to sample our single origin 75% dark chocolate bars.

To celebrate our 30th anniversary, the Ventura Music Festival is teaming up with the City of Ventura and the Downtown Ventura Partners to throw an unforgettable, free, all-day music festival celebrating Southern California talent and culture. Join us for the Spring Music Festival, happening Saturday, May 3, 2025, from 12 PM to 9 PM in the heart of the Downtown Ventura Cultural District. This event is open to all and promises a joyful springtime experience packed with live music, art, food, and family-friendly activities. Come early for the Ventura Farmers Market from 8:30 am to noon near Mission Park where the music festival on three stages begins. Ventura Music Festival is grateful for the generous support from its partners and collaborators for this free community event:

Join Don Most & his 17-piece band for a spectacular night of swing, jazz, and big band classics! Best known as Ralph Malph from Happy Days, Donny brings the timeless music of legends like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and Dean Martin to life with his smooth vocals and captivating stage presence. Backed by a stellar band, he delivers an evening filled with high-energy swing, romantic ballads, and toe-tapping rhythms that transport audiences to the golden age of music. Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer to the classics, this is a show you won’t want to miss!

Please register in advance.

Join UCSB Reads and Goleta Valley Library for an afternoon of poetry readings in celebration of National Poetry Month!

The event will kick off with a reading by local poet and UCSB Professor Emerita Shirley Geok-Lin Lim of one of her favorite poems. Afterward, other participants will read their selected poems to the audience.

How to participate? Please complete this form with your name and the title and author of the published poem you’d like to read by April 21st. All genres and styles are welcome. Participants will be confirmed and notified by April 23rd.

This event is free and open to all students, staff, faculty, and community members.

The event may be photographed or recorded.

Please register in advance.

Join us for a virtual lecture by the 2024 Kenneth Karmiole Research Fellow, Pete Johnson, who used primary sources materials from the Library's Special Research Collections in support of his dissertation research at University of Texas, Austin.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, independent television producers pioneered financial and production models that laid the foundation for the industry’s economic structure, despite being overshadowed by major studios and networks. Johnson's lecture examines their financial struggles and innovations, using archival materials and case studies like Rudy Vallée’s short-lived Vallée-Video to reveal how these early entrepreneurs shaped television’s speculative culture. Though many failed, their efforts influenced the long-term development of television economics, leaving a lasting impact on the media industry.

This lecture is generously supported by the Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship.


About the Speaker
Peter Arne Johnson is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where his research focuses on media industries, business history, and television studies. His doctoral dissertation traces television’s financial model from the early network era in the 1940s to the streaming era from the perspective of television production companies. Pete’s work has been published in Media Industries Journal, New Review of Film & Television, and Democratic Communiqué.

It’s back! Pints for the Park, Santa Barbara’s original craft beer festival, has returned to Elings Park – and is bigger and better than ever. Enjoy Central Coast craft beer, cider, wine, and kombucha from dozens of purveyors. There's also tasty cuisine from food trucks, yummy snacks, and cool park merchandise available for purchase. Santa Barbara's favorite DJ Darla Bea will set just the right vibe while you stroll, sip, snack, shop, sit back, and support the largest privately funded park in America! Drink beer...and help Elings Park.

The Good Good Show is a stand up comedy show featuring the hottest comedians working today that you've seen or heard on Comedy Central, Conan, HBO, Netflix, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel, TruTV, SiriusXM and more.

FEATURING: Aparna Nancherla, Shane Bianchi, Julie Weidmann and Brian Jacobovitz.

Come have some laughs with us and enjoy a delicious craft beer (wine available too)!

7:30 p.m. $10


Show is 21+

“The delights Gay extols here feel purposeful and imperative as well as contagious in their joy.” The New York Times Book Review

UCSB Reads’ 2025 selection, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, is a New York Times bestselling collection of essays celebrating small, ordinary wonders. Written daily over one tumultuous year, Gay’s humorous, poetic and philosophical essays cover a wide range of topics. From a high five with a stranger to cradling a tomato seedling aboard an airplane, Gay reveals how staking out a space for joy brings us closer together. Gay won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2015, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award in 2016 and the PEN/Jean Stein Award in 2021.

Program: 4:30 PM-6 PM
Reception: 6 PM-7:30 PM

Ticket includes digital access to the 2025 Economic Outlook Publication and post-event reception at the Michael Towbes Library Plaza

The annual Santa Barbara County Economic Summit features presentations by a panel of experts on the state of the economy and policy in Santa Barbara and California. The Santa Barbara County economic report will be delivered by Peter Rupert, director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project. Presentations will be followed by a panel moderated by Peter Rupert.