Special Collections & Archives houses photographs, paper-based artworks, posters, documents archives from artists and artist collectives, Mesoamerican ceramics, and more. Below are highlights of the collections.
Bookplates, or ex libris, are labels with a printed design intended to show ownership, usually pasted inside the front cover of a book. Sizes of bookplates vary from folio to very small. They are printed on white or colored paper, vellum, or leather. Bookplates are produced by various means such as woodcut, wood engraving, line engraving, etching, lithography, and modern photographic reproduction.
The materials in this collection were created from 1968-1978. The entire collection consists of posters. The posters announce events presented by the Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Los Angeles. The events include Feria De La Raza, United Mexican-American Students Present Community Day on Campus and a series of posters announcing the message, “Conoce Tu Herencia Cultural”.
The materials in the Compton Communicative Arts Academy (CCAA) archive were created from 1968-1985 by Communicative Arts Academy’s (CAA) coordinator of photography, Willie Ford. The bulk of this collection contains negatives ranging from 35mm negatives, 35mm negative slides, and 120mm negatives followed by photographs, and publications. The visual narrative contains information on events surrounding the CCA. The collection details a visual historical narrative of the city of Compton through the arts. The collection documents and preserves Black memory, testimony, tradition, and culture in Compton.
The collection consists of art, posters, and art cards, primarily from the 1970s-80s by the
Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Gitxsan, and Haida peoples of the Northwest.
With the entrance of US Forces into World War II in 1941 the United States Government produced propaganda posters designed to increase support for the war on the home front. Posters encouraged the public to conserve materials for the war efforts, increase productions of war materials, buy war bonds and maintain secrecy. This collection houses a variety of posters from artist like, Norman Rockwell, Albert Dorne and Fritz Siebel.
The Mesoamerica and Colonial Mexico Rare Book Collection consists of facsimile editions of Pre-Columbian Codices, such as the Borgia, Nuttall, Fejervary-Mayer, Vaticanus A and B, Selden, Borbonicus, Boturini, Mendoza, De la Cruz-Badiano, and Florentine Codex.
Free public access to searchable collection guides (also known as finding aids) for primary resource collections in repositories maintained by more than 200 institutions throughout California, including many digitized collections.
The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection emphasizes the history of Los Angeles, Southern California, and California. This Internet-accessible collection is one of the treasures of the Central Library.
Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over 750,000 photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.
nspired by the many contemporary critical works and archives focusing on the intellectual and social history of HIV and AIDS, Reveal Digital will add to the suite of digital archives in its Diversity & Dissent fund an internationally scoped collection of primary sources documenting the artistic response to the epidemic.
