"Art is humanity’s greatest tool for insight." Many things get lost in time. The power that book artists’ wield is their ability to conjure up the lost. And at their disposal are an array of techniques that only heighten the effectiveness of words (the two play off of each other, in a way), from the delicate scent of wood that whisks past your nostrils, the feeling of a page gliding across your fingertips or the way colors are absorbed by the paper and create feelings and meaning beyond what you’ve read.
Cataloging is a very interesting and detail-oriented task. I have been doing it for almost two years, and I still feel like a newbie. There can be so much going on in a single photo; you learn something new every day. I have had the pleasure of cataloging the Rolland J. Curtis Collection which will soon be completely available on Tessa
The Los Angeles Public Library is celebrating its 150th anniversary through various activities, including a system-wide celebration featuring reading challenges, public programs, giveaways, storytelling events, a physical exhibit “LAPL150—Our Story is Yours: A Los Angeles Public Library Sesquicentennial Celebration”
There is something special about visiting the library and losing yourself in a good book. It can become more special when you find a surprise inside that book. An item meant to be forgotten, found again and given new meaning. It can be as if you found another chapter to the book, a hidden story only you get to know. Working at the Los Angeles Public Library's Special Collections department
Rolland J. Curtis needs your help—well, ok. Maybe photographer Rolland J. Curtis does not need your help, but the library certainly does!
Let me set the scene for you:
Have you ever looked at a digitized historical photograph and exclaimed, 'Hey! I know that man!'
Out of approximately 1,400 bookplates in the Los Angeles Library’s Bookplates Collection, about 120 distinctive bookplates have female names imprinted on them. Even though the number is small and little is known about some of these women, the bookplates manifest self-identity and the intellectual ambition of their female owners.
You may be already familiar with the robust and diverse digital collections on the Los Angeles Public Library’s online archive, Tessa. Tessa hosts various collections of photographs, maps, menus, and graphic illustrations from travel posters to fashion plates. I would like to introduce you to a collection you may have overlooked, our oral histories.
Earlier this year I learned that my colleague Vikki Wong had a collection of menus she has been collecting since 1989, and wasn’t sure what to do with them. We encouraged Vikki to donate her menus to the menu collection. After several conversations and 300 menus collected over 30 years we have a unique addition to our menu collection from a veteran member of the Los Angeles Public Library.
In this stifling night
There lies in wait a sun!
Unspoken suffering...
-Nguyễn Chí Thiện, 1976
As the Los Angeles Public Library celebrates Women’s History Month, it’s appropriate to remember Tessa Kelso, sixth city librarian for Los Angeles (1889-1895). Kelso may not have been the first female city librarian—that was the iron-willed teenager Mary Foy—but she was certainly the one most openly concerned with equal rights for women and least concerned with conventional practice in either libraries or society.
Working in the photo archive of the Los Angeles Public Library has allowed me some great moments of discovery, learning random and often forgotten details about the city I live in. When discussing potential upcoming blog post topics, my supervisor was the first to inform me about a playground that existed once in the San Fernando Valley, built to resemble the wonderful land of Oz.
The library’s Los Angeles Herald Examiner photo collection spans seven decades, from the mid-1920s to 1989 and is a treasure trove of all things Los Angeles. For many years, the newspaper gravitated to stories of a more sensational slant which naturally drew them to city’s many residing movie stars. What resulted are mini collections documenting the lives and the careers of our glamour gods, reflecting early career triumphs
With sugary talk of Halloween treats in the office air, I was inspired to satisfy my archival sweet tooth with a hunt for some tasty images that I could share with you. Hopefully the assortment I put together is more treats than tricks, so grab your trusty plastic pumpkin pail and let’s hit the road.
This year marks the 110th birthday of Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning author, maverick, playwright, uncommon storyteller, and humanist William Saroyan. William Stonehill Saroyan was born in Fresno, CA, to Armenian immigrants Armenag and Takoohi Saroyan on August 31, 1908. At age 26, the publication of his first book, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), made him a literary sensation.”
With all the recent Disneyland auction excitement swirling about we were inspired to take a little peek into our photo archive to see what historical photographic Disney treasures we have to share. Even though you may be a bit let down after losing your winning bid on an original Skyway Cab that topped out at $621,000 I still hope you join us on our free virtual nickel tour.
Every year, the Los Angeles Conservancy presents the Last Remaining Seats classic film series in several historic Los Angeles movie palaces. Most shows in the series also present the opportunity to purchase a spot in a group architectural tour led by one of the Conservancy’s knowledgeable docents.
In one glass case, what first draws my eye is a REMEMBER JOE MAIZLISH bumper sticker identical to the one I affixed to the bumper of my dad’s Ford Mustang in 1968. Yes, I do remember Joe Maizlish. Decades ago, I wrote to him in while he was in federal prison
Former City Librarian Charles F. Lummis approached the Library Board of Directors in October of 1905 and recommended that a system of collecting autographs be put in place: There are few intelligent people who have not some interest in distinguished autographs. At a very small expense for stationery, postage, and clerical work, this library could found an autograph department, using uniform sheets to be bound up in volumes.
During the Middle Ages and the early modern era, owning a book was a rare and precious thing. Reserved only for the very wealthy, books were expensive, prestigious, and showed a certain status in society. If you were rich enough to own books, you wanted to make sure that anyone seeing them knew the books were yours. Enter the ex libris (Latin for “from the books of…”), or bookplate
The Liberator is an early 20th-century Los Angeles African American newspaper, whose owner and editor, Jefferson Lewis Edmonds, was born enslaved and spent twenty years in bondage before Emancipation. Edmonds was educated in Mississippi Freedmen’s Bureau schools and served two terms in the Mississippi State Assembly before moving to Los Angeles after the end of Reconstruction due to threats against his family.