Use the library catalog to search across all UCLA Library materials and locations. This includes Special Collections materials, including manuscripts, books, periodicals, and other resources that may not be listed with the archival collections in the Online Archive of California.
The Online Archive of California provides collection guides for archival materials at all UCs campuses and other contributing institutions, including libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies across California. You can search or browse collection guides for Special Collections archival materials here.
Using SPAC codes
Special Collections and the library at large use Special Collections and Archives Codes (SPACs) to group together items that belong to the same collecting areas. For example, SPACs might be given to all books that are bought using a special endowment or fund, or which are all received together as part of a large donation. Including the SPAC code in the catalog record for each book makes it possible to pull up all of the books in that group at once by searching with the SPAC code.
This library guide will share several SPAC codes with you. To use a SPAC code, go to the Advanced Search option in the library catalog, choose SpecialColl/Archive SPAC from the drop-down menu, and type in your SPAC code.
UCLA Library holds a wide variety of resources to help you with your research, study, or personal questions. These include books, journals, newspapers, and other print materials; archives and manuscripts; learning tools and web resources; and visual, audio, and audiovisual resources. The library has several locations across campus, which can be found here.
The Special Collections department of the library holds archives, rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and other rare and unique materials. These materials are a bit different from the other collections in the library.
What are archival materials?
Archival materials are usually primary source materials that are created by people or groups, such as families, organizations, or corporations. This can include things like diaries and writings, letters and correspondence, reports, photographs and sketches, audio or audiovisual recordings, and so on. Archival materials created by organizations are sometimes referred to as their records. All of these materials are kept and preserved because they tell us about the activities of the people or groups that created them. This quality is sometimes referred to as enduring historical value or evidential value.
How can I search for archival materials?
Archival materials are organized and described differently than other library materials. They are usually grouped into collections. A collection can be materials that are grouped together because they were created by the same person or organization, or because they concern the same topic or are connected in some way. Each collection will have an individual collection number and title. For example:
The contents of a collection are described using a research tool called a finding aid, or collection guide. The finding aid will tell you about the history of the creator, how the collection came to UCLA, what is in the collection, how the collection is arranged, and so on. It will also usually have a list of the contents and the containers (usually boxes) that they are in, called a container list.
Each collection will also have a catalog record on the library catalog. For more information on using the catalog and finding aids, see Finding Library and Special Collections materials.
What else is held at Special Collections?
In addition to archival materials, Special Collections holds rich collections of rare books and manuscripts, oral histories relating to the history of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and its many communities, and the records of the university, held in its University Archives. More information about collecting areas can be found here.
How can I look at Special Collections materials?
Everyone is welcome to use Special Collections material, regardless of affiliation. Special Collections materials must be requested in advance through Aeon, an online registration and request system. These materials cannot be checked out and must be viewed onsite in the Special Collections department's Ahmanson-Murphy Reading Room, on the A-Level of the Young Research Library. For more information, you can visit the Library Special Collections website, here.
A subject heading is a specific word or phrase used to find and organize books and articles by topic. Subject headings can be a great way to easily find things related directly to your topic. When library materials are cataloged, they are usually given subject headings to make them more easily searchable by people interested in those subjects.
To see a list of all subject headings currently being used for Armenian materials in the library catalog, you can choose Subject List from the drop-down menu of search criteria and type "Armenia" or related terms. This will give you a list of all subjects using these terms, and you can view the books or items associated with those subjects.
Here are a few examples of subject headings:
Sometimes materials in Armenian or other languages other than English will be cataloged in their original scripts. Many catalog records, however, will use transliterated titles, or titles in which the Armenian (or other) words have been written in Latin script. These Library of Congress Romanization tables are used when transliterating Armenian and other languages into Latin script.
A resource guide for using Zotero (an open-source, free bibliography management tool) at UCLA.