USC Libraries

The USC Libraries and L.A. as Subject have launched a new online collaboration with Los Angeles magazine, and L.A. as Subject's partnership with KCET-TV, now nearly two years old, recently passed a major milestone with the 100th online feature about Southern California history. Keep reading to learn more about the joint ventures, which highlight the USC Libraries' role as host institution for L.A. as Subject and are part of the libraries' continuing efforts to promote and improve access to the primary sources of our region's history.

USC's Doheny Memorial Library hosted the 7th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar this past Saturday, October 27. LAist and The Modern Hiker both covered the daylong celebration of Los Angeles history. Ethnomusicology Review, The Daily Mirror, and Metro's The Source blog also featured the bazaar. Keep reading to learn more about the blogs' coverage of the event.

From the activists who struggled for social justice in their neighborhoods to the trolleys that once connected far-flung communities, Los Angeles history comes alive Oct. 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in USC’s Doheny Memorial Library at the 7th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Presented by L.A. as Subject and the USC Libraries, the daylong event offers encounters with exhibits from more than 80 historical collections and archives. This year’s Archives Bazaar also marks the opening of a new exhibition on the ground floor of Doheny Library. “Water and Power” explores, through more than two dozen images from L.A. as Subject member institutions, the roles water and power—figuratively and literally—have played in shaping Los Angeles history. Keep reading to learn more about the bazaar and new exhibition, or RSVP now to attend the opening reception for "Water and Power," beginning immediately after the bazaar at 5 p.m.

USC's Doheny Memorial Library will host the 7th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar on Saturday, October 27, 2012. As in past years, more than 70 libraries, museums, archives, private collectors, and other L.A. as Subject members are expected to participate, exhibiting rare materials from their collections. The event, organized by L.A. as Subject and presented by the USC Libraries, will run from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Programming details will be announced later.

History will come alive once again on Oct. 22 as dozens of Southern California’s rare and archival materials come together at the sixth annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Serious researchers and history buffs will be able to visit a number of exhibitions, film screenings and educational sessions during the daylong event to be hosted by the USC Libraries and presented by L.A. as Subject. The latter is a research alliance of libraries, museums, archives and cultural institutions dedicated to preserving the city’s history. Keep reading to learn more about this year's bazaar.

In a pilot episode of its new SoCal Wanderer series, KCET recently featured several archival photographs from the USC Libraries' Regional History Collection. Keep reading to learn more about the video, which explores some of the secret stairways of Los Angeles.

Several images from the USC Libraries' Special Collections—as well as photographs from other L.A. as Subject member institutions—are featured in a new exhibit on bicycling inside the District 7 headquarters of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Everyday Bicycling: Gearing up for Transportation, on display through June 20, highlights the bicycle as a practical transportation option. The archival images complement a variety of bicycles and bicycling gear on display and underscore the long attachment Southern Californians have felt to their two-wheeled, human-powered vehicles. Keep reading to learn more about the exhibit, which is free and open to the public.

The USC Libraries are participating in several ways in the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which the University of Southern California hosts for the first time this weekend, Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1. Keep reading to learn about how the libraries are celebrating the festival's debut at USC.

Archivist Katie Richardson recently completed online finding aids for 7 collections related to L.A. social and political history for the CLIR-funded project, Excavating L.A.: USC’s Hidden Southern California Historical Collections. The newly processed archives include records from a 1976 school segregation court case involving the L.A. Board of Education and papers from the Webster Commission investigation into the causes of the 1992 L.A. riots. Also included is the K. Garrison Clarke collection featuring photographs of scenes from a changing California between 1948 and 1975. Keep reading for Clarke's photographs and links to the finding aids.