Robert F. Kennedy with California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh (left) and former USC President Norman Topping (right) during a 1965 visit to the USC campus.
Thanks to a recent grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), USC librarians are creating online finding aids for 53 archival collections related to Los Angeles arts and culture, including the papers of Ray Bradbury. You can see the results of their work by searching the libraries' HOMER catalog or visiting the Online Archive of California Web site, where you can view detailed descriptions of 7 newly processed collections of L.A. historical materials.
The previously hidden collections include: Abolish Cross-Filing in California Records, the Caltrans District 7 Collection, the Gladwyn Hill Kennedy Assassinations Investigation Papers, the John A. Sanborn Papers, the Robert Richardson Southern California Theater Collection, The Scribes Records, and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Collection. In addition, USC librarians recently processed additional collections of rare archival materials related to L.A. history: the David Rose Papers, the Del M. Reynolds Papers, and the J.E. Woodhead Papers.
These unique collections will soon become more accessible to scholars thanks to the USC Libraries’ summer 2009 grant from the NHPRC, which awarded the libraries $110,560 to arrange and describe 53 collections, including the papers of Irving Wallace and a variety of important film and performing arts archives.
The materials complement the archival collections of L.A. and California-related materials selected for two processing projects that were recently awarded Hidden Special Collections and Archives grants by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). CLIR awarded $160,000 to the USC Libraries for Excavating L.A.: USC’s Hidden Southern California Historical Collections, which focuses on L.A. social and political history. The organization also funded Uncovering California’s Environmental Collections, a partnership among the California Digital Library, the USC Libraries, and eight other California university libraries. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the grants will support new research and teaching in academic fields ranging from urban planning and social and political history to architecture, botany, and climatology.