Los Angeles History and Culture
For decades, UCLA Library Special Collections has been documenting the breadth of Los Angeles area history and culture, going back to the Mexican and Spanish eras. Traditional strengths include Californiana, early photography, historical periodicals, maps, literature, the arts and fashion, the papers of outstanding civic figures, and ethnic communities, especially Japanese Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans.
In 2009, the UCLA Library created Collecting Los Angeles, placed an emphasis on broadly defined communities whose history was overlooked but crucial to understanding the development of the metropolis. In 2019, LSC created the position of Archivist/Librarian for Los Angeles Communities and Cultures.
Two curators were hired for this position, Lizeth Ramirez and Dalena Sanderson-Hunter, who have slightly differing specialties. Please see their descriptions and contact information below:
Lizeth Ramirez
Librarian/Archivist for Los Angeles Communities and Cultures | Bibliotecaria/Archivista para Comunidades y Culturas de Los Ángeles310.206.5275
ramirezlr@library.ucla.edu
Current Collecting Priorities
- Ethnic community history, particularly:
- African-American Community
- Central-American Communities
- Chinese-American Community
- Filipino-American Community
- Japanese-American Community
- Korean-American Community
- Mexican-American Community
- LGBTQ communities, including:
- Minoritized LGBTQ communities
- Transgender community
- Social justice movements such as:
- Environmental movements
- Climate change
- Los Angeles River
- Labor/Unions
- Education/teacher unions
- Labor movements and protests
- Unions representing minoritized communities
- Urban Planning/Policies
- Displacement
- Gentrification
- Transient populations
- Environmental movements
- Culinary and Food Culture, including:
- Chefs, Bakers, Sommeliers, other restaurant staff
- Food trucks
- Nutritional (dietary) movements
- Restaurants
- Street Vendors
- Other Los Angeles centered topics, including:
- History of printing and publishing
- History of UCLA
- Punk culture
Exclusions
- Materials unrelated to the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, or Southern California.
- Materials of unknown provenance, where copyright and intellectual property rights are unknown.
- Material that is held at other libraries or is readily available elsewhere.
Collection priorities will be reviewed periodically and updated as needed. They do not preclude the acquisition of archives, rare books, manuscripts, photographs, ephemera, audiovisual materials, digital files, and other primary source materials of a rare or unique nature that fall outside of the above described collection priorities.
Para ver la descripción de Lizeth en español, descargue este PDF.
Dalena Sanderson-Hunter
Librarian/Archivist for Los Angeles Communities and Cultures
Current Collecting Priorities
- Community history of marginalized ethnic and racial communities including
- LGBT of Color communities
- Bohemian and literary history
- Social Justice Organizing
- Youth culture
- Professional Organizations
- Intersectional identity communities
- Environmental activists
- African American music and music culture
- Civic history of Los Angeles
- The environmental movement
- Everyday People-Local Color
Collecting Methods
- Acquiring physical collections via deed of gift
- Acquiring digital surrogates where appropriate
- Post-custodial model, providing assistance by offering support, assisting in arrangement of collections, and establishing access
- Oral history projects
Exclusions
- Materials unrelated to the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, or Southern California
- Collections held at other special collections or readily available elsewhere
- Partial collections when major portions of the collection have already been deposited elsewhere
- Materials that are damaged beyond use by age, insects, and/or mold
- Materials in formats that LSC cannot provide access to and are unlikely to be able to do so in the future
- Large works of art or artifacts
More About the Collection
For more information about the collections and materials available online, see Los Angeles History and Culture in Library Special Collections.
