Los Angeles Public Library is celebrating 100 years of the Central Library, making this the perfect time to spotlight the exceptional librarians who have overseen this remarkable building and everything within: its collections, programs, services, and staff. Over several weeks, we're highlighting the individuals who have served as Director of Central Library.
In Part 1 of this series,...
One of the most breathtaking stops on our daily Docent-led Art and Architecture Tours is the majestic Grand Rotunda, encircled by the pastel-toned murals by Dean Cornwell. Eighty years after their unveiling, the 12 panels of scenes from California history still feel modern.
When in the second half of the last century Isaac Bashevich Singer was awarded a Noble Prize for Literature, he raised an interesting question: “People ask me often, ‘Why do you write in a dying language?’” And he tried to explain: “There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life… e
The Los Angeles Public Library has been the custodian of the photo collection from the Valley Times newspaper (1946-1970) for over thirty years, since receiving as part of the donation from the Security Pacific National Bank in 1981.
While new technology points toward every reference resource being digitized and on your hand-held something there are library beauties that can only be savored in person, in your actual hand kind of experiences.
I first learned of the Doheny Greystone tragedy while curating an exhibition of manipulated photographs taken from the library’s Herald Examiner photographs.
In the early 1960s, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy symbolized hope, change, and the dawn of a new era for a country that was caught in the clutches of Cold War fear, and in many cases, clinging to certain outdated social attitudes.
Many visitors to Central Library are curious to know what the oldest book in our collection might be. In recent months we have been fortunate enough to find out a great deal of new information about a very special item in our Rare Books collection.
With the New Year looming ahead of us, it seemed like a perfect time to look back at the 2012 goings on in the Photo Collection.
As the start of winter draws near (the winter solstice will be on December 21 in 2012 and it happens at 3:12 am on the West Coast according to the U.S. Naval Observatory), most of us will see snow.
Los Angeles in the late 1930s was a city in transition. It was suffering through the Great Depression with the rest of the country, but forging ahead with progress. Old Chinatown and La Grande Station were being erased, but Union Station and a New Chinatown would soon emerge.