USC Digital Library Represents Collaboration Among Historical Societies,
Newspapers, And More
Organizations Work Together For Preservation And Accessibility
The photo seen here was taken at the 1951 tree lighting ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and scanned to digital for inclusion in the University of Southern California’s vast Digital Library. The USC library system has set out to “select, collect, preserve, and make accessible” an enormous collection of unique materials, including high resolution digital photographs, oral histories and sound recordings, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and more. This wealth of media is organized within the USC Digital Library, which includes metadata to support research. The digital collection helps fulfill the university’s mission to provide an online gateway to research resources about Los Angeles and Southern California.
Some of the high quality digital images accessible from the USC Digital Library website are “on loan” from collaborating institutions that have agreed to share their collections. Together these institutions have contributed to the creation of the largest and most valuable archival collection of
digital media related to the history and culture of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. The USC Digital Library provides a powerful infrastructure to create the host environment for these collaborators, all of which benefit from working toward the common goals of preservation and accessibility. The digital collections comprise a host of materials from the USC Libraries, as well as from various historical societies, other libraries, newspapers, and other organizations with rich collections of historical artifacts relating to the Southern California, the Western United States, and the Pacific Rim. Particular emphasis has been placed on artifacts from these regions, though the collections are by no means limited to this part of the country.
The USC Digital Library spans a wide range of media, including audio and video recordings, but visual media compose the bulk of the collection. The digital archive includes thousands of photographs, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, posters, prints, maps, rare illustrated books, and more – all scanned to digital at high resolution to capture every detail. The USC Digital Library continues to grow as navigation is enhanced and the collections evolve.
Visit the USC Digital Library to explore this amazing collection.














