Information Outlook, Vol. 6, No. 2, February 2002

Los Angeles' Very Special Libraries: Finding Something for Everyone

By Lysbeth Chuck

Take a Tour of LA Culture

From outer space to the intricacies of motion picture special effects, from the Wild West to the roots of Anglo-American arts and literature, from original Spanish land grants to ancient Hebrew texts, you will find almost anything you want to research in the very special libraries of the Los Angeles area. In addition to the richness and diversity of their collections, many of LA's libraries are architectural and cultural treasures in their own right worth a visit just for the experience of being there.

Some are part of larger institutions, like museums, universities, or government agencies, but many of these are open to the public as well. Below are descriptions and locations for a few of the ones you won't want to miss when you visit Los Angeles for SLA's 2002 Annual Conference.

Richard Riordan Central Library

Formerly the Los Angeles Central Library, this historic structure has always featured inventive architecture, and served as the "heart" of Los Angeles' downtown. Designed in the early 20's by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, its unmistakable pyramid profile, decorated with sphinxes, snakes, and celestial mosaics, has helped define the "off-beat" character of Los Angeles over the years. After a tragic fire in 1986 destroyed part of the building and 20 percent of the library's collection, the city responded by enlarging and modernizing the library.

Even if you've never been to the Riordan library, you may have seen the building on a fruit crate label. In the early 30's the Miss Los Angeles label, used on many crates, celebrated the city as an agricultural center, and embodied the community's pride in its new central library by featuring the library's picture in the background. As far as the staff knows, it's the only library ever used on a product label!

The library's famous for some other offbeat reasons. Charles Lummis, an early 20th century city librarian, commissioned a branding iron, known as "Marcas del Fuego," that was patterned after those used in Mexican convent and monastery libraries. Highly prized and important books in the collection were "fire-marked" with the Central Library's brand. The library no longer uses it, preferring more high-tech methods of claiming its property, but there are still old books in the collection, including many in the Rare Books Room, that carry the library's old marca.

The astonishing complexity of the library's architecture and design is exemplified by its mix of original and contemporary designs. Dean Cornwell's original mural, depicting the four great eras of California history and created in the heroic style of the 1930's for the Lodwrick M. Cook Rotunda, both contrasts and complements Renee Petropoulos' vividly painted contemporary work. Her colored rings, starbursts, checkerboards, and the names of Los Angeles novelists intertwine to decorate the 36- by 36-foot ceiling in the Goodhue Building's first floor.

Now imagine yourself in an "observation pod" that travels between the subject divisions of the library's collection. That's exactly what happens when you enter one of the two David Bunn-designed elevators in the Tom Bradley Wing. Using some of the seven million catalog cards rendered obsolete by the library's state-of-the-art OPAC, Bunn papered the inside of the elevator cabs and lined the shafts visible through their viewing windows. The digital readout for each floor the elevator passes gives the Dewey Decimal numbers for that floor's holdings. "The elevators and the card catalog together form a kind of 'core sample' of the library." explained Bunn. "As the catalog classifies and finds a place for every book, so the elevators travel deep through the center of the building, encompassing and accessing all the building's holdings."

Each of the many fences, grilles, gates statues, and chandeliers throughout the library symbolizes some aspect of reading, writing, or knowing. Many are adorned with multi-lingual texts representing major cultures and reflecting the "fundamental purpose of a libraryto promote reading and transmit knowledge." None does so with more dramatic impact than Jud Fine's work on the Flower Street entryway, titled "Spine."

Fine's work features steps, pools, sculptures, and inscriptions analogous to an open book, starting with two pieces at the entrance to the Macguire Gardens, which function like the frontispiece or end sheets of a book. Then come a series of stairs past raised pools titled "Bright," "Lucid," and "Clear," each of which contains a sculpted fountain illustrating some stage of evolution. Risers on the steps on either side of the fountains feature a series of plaques that move from the earliest known forms of written language to the complex symbols that make today's technological communications possible. At one end of the stairs, the plaques are made of patinaed brass containing letters from 19 languages. Further along the stairway, are black copper plates with printed words in nine languages cut into the surface in white. They eventually become stainless steel plates etched on black with symbolic communications in higher math, art, and poetry from the electronic age.

Fine explains the work like this: "'Spine' is a title which brings several confluent ideas to mind. The spine is the fundamental unit of a body that gives it the strength and support to stand on its own. The spine begins where the brain leaves off. The electricity of the body flows through it. Fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals are all classified together due to the commonality of the spine. Structurally, the spine also refers to the anatomy of the book. A book is identified by the name running down its spine. The spine separates the front from the back, and at the same time hinges them together. It is the central nervous system of the book."

And guess what? There's even more. Edging the pools and artwork of "Spine" is one of LA's best-loved lunch spots, Café Pinot. It's been called "the perfect restaurant for the downtown area, uniquely situated adjacent to the central library overlooking the beautiful Maguire Gardens, with an equal view of downtown's magnificent skyline." There's even a take-out window open all day, so you can get a great meal, check out a great book, and enjoy a great afternoon in the beautiful landscape of one of LA's great libraries!

But don't just visit the Riordan Library if you come to Los Angeles. Use it. The central library's website at www.lapl.org features some wonderful tools for visitors, like The electronic neighborhood (lapl.org/elec_neigh/index.html), a unique one-stop information resource for information on California and regional history topics.

By searching its databases (California Index, Photo Collection, Menu Collection, Turnabout Theatre, or California Fiction) one can access data and visual imagesindexes, documents, and photographsthat provide unique information on local communities, neighborhoods, and people dating back hundreds of years. The electronic neighborhood also includes valuable links to regional history and informational web pages outside the library's holdings.

The Richard Riordan Central Library is located at 630 W. Fifth Street, just blocks from the Los Angeles Convention Center. Hours are: Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.; Fridays 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.; Saturdays 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.; and Sundays 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, & Botanical Gardens

Further from town, but well worth the journey, is the Huntington Library, one of the largest and most complete research libraries covering Anglo-American civilization in the United States. Founded in 1919 by railroad and real estate developer Henry Edwards Huntington and opened to the public in 1928, the Huntington is comprised of three art galleries and a library, showcasing magnificent collections of paintings, sculptures, rare books, manuscripts, and decorative arts, all set amidst 150 acres of breathtaking gardens. The botanical collection alone features more than 14,000 different species of plants!

A collection of close to five million books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials ranging from 3500 BC to the present await the visiting scholar. If you wish to use the library's collection for actual research, however, you must apply for reading privileges before you go. Individuals with a legitimate purpose for using the library's collections should contact the reader services department to request an application form, and should be prepared to provide the names and addresses of two scholars in good standing who will act as references. A link to the application formand more information on reader servicescan be found on the Huntington's website at www.huntington.org/ResearchDiv/ResReader.html. Applicants are requested to allow three weeks for the completion of the approval process. And before coming to the library, new and returning readers are requested to notify the reader services department of their expected date of arrival.

And for the general public a selection of the library's holdings are displayed in the library exhibition hall, demonstrating the development of Anglo-American civilization over the last 1,000 years. Exhibits include the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Gutenberg Bible, Shakespeare's quartos and folios, the papers of the Founding Fathers, and the double-elephant folio editions of Audubon's Birds of America. The Huntington is the only place in the West where visitors can regularly view original documents related to the founding of the United States.

The Huntington has a long history of preservation and conservation, beginning in the 1920s with the construction of fire- and earthquake-proof rare book stacks and the establishment of a book bindery. With the construction of the Avery Conservation Center in 1981, a new era of comprehensive preservation and conservation activity was ushered in, and manuscripts and rare books are now conserved for future generations, using state-of-the-art-techniques. The current program covers preventive and remedial conservation, environmental control, emergency preparedness, exhibitions, research, and documentation, brittle book replacement, education, training and outreach, and digital imaging for preservation and access.

The Preservation and Conservation Department is responsible for the stabilization and treatment of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and works of art on paper. The Avery Conservation Center houses a paper, manuscript, and photograph conservation lab; a book conservation lab; an exhibits preparation unit; and a digital imaging lab. The Huntington plans on providing behind-the-scenes tours (which will include the Avery Center) for a limited number of SLA attendees. Check your conference programs for availability.

And, of course, there are still the museums and the gardens themselves to enjoy. There's even an English Tea Room overlooking three acres of roses. You can get a pot of perfectly brewed tea and a basket of freshly baked scones. Or eat lunch from an all-you-can eat buffet of savory finger sandwiches, strawberries and cream, fresh seasonal fruit, imported cheeses and crackers, freshly baked fruit tartlets, homemade shortbread cookies, walnut tarts, assorted bundt cakes, or chocolate cups with lemon curd and whipped cream.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens are located at 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, CA 91108. Summer Hours (June through August) are: 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. If you don't go with SLA, there is a $10.00 admission fee for adult non-members; $8.50 for seniors age 65 and over, $7.00 for students (age 12-18 or with full-time student I.D.), and children under 12 are admitted free. For groups of ten or more, the charge is $8.00 per person, and admission is free to all visitors on the first Thursday of every month. Telephone 626-405-2100.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Located on a 177-acre site at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, California, 12 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Jet Propulsion Lab, managed by the California Institute of Technology, is NASA's lead center for robotic exploration of outer space. JPL's spacecraft have visited all the planets in our solar systemexcept Plutoand JPL telescopes continually observe distant events in the universe, studying how our solar system was formed. JPL manages the worldwide Deep Space Network, which communicates with spacecraft conducting scientific investigations. JPL cameras and sensors circle the Earth continuously, studying the ozone, the oceans, and Earth's relation with the rest of the solar system. JPL is also advancing technology with new instruments and computer programs to help spacecraft travel further and telescopes see farther than ever before.

And much of the material in the library and archives that support these endeavors is available for public use. JPL records are considered internal documents, but they are accessible to researchers from the general public once they have been reviewed and cleared by the JPL for external release. Just as at the Huntington, researchers planning a visit must notify the archives of their research topic in advance to determine the availability of materials on a particular research topic. Visits are by appointment only.

The archives are open for research from 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. (Pacific Time Zone), Monday through Friday, and are closed during all regular JPL-observed holidays.

The JPL Library is located at Building 111, West End, 48 Oak Grove Drive, MS 111-113, Pasadena, CA 91109. Telephone: 818-354-4200. The JPL Archives and Records Management Facility is located at Sherikon Space Systems, Inc., 145 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena, California 91107.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Margaret Herrick Library

Capturing the essence of Los Angeles' best-known product, the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is one of the world's most extensive and comprehensive research and reference libraries, collecting materials that document film as both an art form and an industry. The Herrick Library includes more than 20,000 books, 1,400 periodical titles, 60,000 screenplays, 200,000 clipping files, 15,000 posters, lobby cards, pressbooks and other advertising ephemera; more than 6 million photographs; more than 300 manuscript and other special collections relating to prominent industry individuals, studios and organizations; including sheet music, music scores and sound recordings; production and costume sketches; artifacts; and oral histories.

The Department of Special Collections (Manuscripts), for example, is rich in unique material documenting individuals and organizations that have figured prominently in the history of motion pictures. These manuscripts were first collected by the library in the mid-1940s. Among the earliest collections were gifts from William N. Selig in 1946, Mrs. J. Searle Dawley in 1949, and Mack Sennett in 1951. Around 400 collections document the product and activities of motion picture companies and organizations, as well as those of individualseveryone from producers, directors, writers, and actors, to cinematographers, art directors, costume designers, composers, make-up artists, animators, columnists, publicists, and executivesalmost anyone who has made significant contributions to motion pictures, one of America's defining industries.

Collected material, which varies in size, scope, and content, includes everything from production files (such as budgets, call sheets, legal material, research, and schedules), to scripts, correspondence, clippings, contracts, manuscripts, notes, scrapbooks, costume sketches, production sketches, storyboards, sheet music, music scores, and recorded sound (in various formats: disc recordings, tape recordings, compact discs). The Herrick Library is dedicated to maintaining these collections of valuable primary source materials, ensuring their preservation and availability for the future, properly housing and storing them in a safe and secure environment, to providing detailed and accurate inventories, and fully processing and cataloging these rare and historical items to facilitate their use by scholars, researchers, and students.

Inventories listing the catalogued contents of each collection are available at the reference desk in the reading room. These special collections are very extensive, but the library has even more to offer. In addition to them, the Herrick "attempts to collect every English-language book on motion pictures (histories, biographies, the film industry around the world, genre studies, technical aspects, etc.), as well as important foreign reference sources and selected books in allied fields such as television, radio, theater, and music."

Then there are the periodical holdings, which cover all aspects of filmmaking from the first decade of the century to the present. These are primarily U.S. publications, but there are also English-language magazines from such countries as Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the USSR, India, and China, and a comprehensive collection of industry trade journals dating back to 1906. Of particular note are the many rare issues of studio house organs, including The Biograph, The Edison Kinetogram, Kalem Kalendar, The Lion's Roar (MGM), RKO Radio Flash, The Triangle, Universal Weekly, and Vitagraph Life Portrayals. The library also has microfilm editions of numerous rare periodicals.

Finally, the regular core collection includes more than 6,000 screenplays for produced films from both the silent and sound eras, from The Dividend (1916), Camille (1921), and Wings (1927), to more recent films such as Babette's Feast, Red Sorghum, Belle Epoque, The Silence Of The Lambs, The Piano, Schindler's List, Antonia's Line, and Braveheart. Both unpublished, manuscript versions of the scripts (from treatments to cutting continuities), as well as published editions are included. In 1998, the library published the Motion Picture Scripts and Union List, a work that locates more than 23,000 screenplays held by Southern California institutions: the Academy (Margaret Herrick Library), the American Film Institute (Louis B. Mayer Library), the Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Library, UCLA (Arts-Special Collections), University of Southern California (Cinema-Television Library), and the Writers Guild of America, West.

All the material in the Margaret Herrick Library is non-circulating and may be used for reference only in the library, which is open to the public Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Please note that pulling of material and photocopying stops at 5:30 p.m. If you wish to visit the library, you'll have to present a valid photo ID. All personal belongings, other than paper, pencil, and laptop computer, must be placed in provided lockers. Access to the library is free, but access to the special collections (manuscripts and photographs) is by appointment only, and only to individuals with a bona fide research need. For appointments, call (310)-247-3000, ext. 226. For interested researchers outside of Los Angeles who can't visit in person, the Library's National Film Information Service (NFIS) provides fee-based research services, and the Academy's Oscar database is free for searching on the web at www.db.oscars.org/awards_db/index.html.

Autry Museum of Western Heritage

"So I took off my hat as the horses passed by...

my curiosity straining to burst.

so I asked who died? to the man in the crowd.

He said I think its the one in the hearse..."

Dallas McCord, Cowboy Poet

Gene Autry. Ken Maynard. Tex Ritter. The Sons of the Golden West. Buck Jones. Rocky Mountain Steve. General George Armstrong Custer. Some of these names have to ring a bell, if you are or ever were, a fan of the American West! Find out about them at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage and visit Los Angeles' beautiful Griffith Park at the same time. In addition to the Autry, Griffith Park has the Los Angeles Zoo, the Travel Town train museum, horseback riding, and miles of hiking trails.

The Autry itself is an interesting and diverse place, collecting everything from film and television posters to diaries, maps, and artifacts. The Film and Television Poster Collection, for example, is dedicated to the mass-produced imagery that has advertised the American West worldwide. Other collections concentrate on pulp and popular fiction, Wild West Shows, rodeos, melodramas, and motion pictures, or television, radio, music, travel, tourism, and advertising, as they relate to the great American West.

You could check out the Fred Rosenstock Collection, containing more than 21,000 titles of Western Americana, manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, maps, photographs, and visual ephemera ranging from the late 16th century to 1975. Or the Western Map Collection of more than 260 maps dating from the 1830s to the 1950s. Or the Frontier Military Collection, with materials relating to Myles Keogh (1840-1876), an Irish-born officer who died with Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. There's the Dime Novel Collection of more than 1,000 items dating from the 1880's to the 1920's, and the Kelly Collection of more than 3,000 volumes of popular Western fiction in U.S. and foreign editions. Or try the Gene Autry Archive, a comprehensive collection documenting the career and business interests of the Western star, media phenomenon, and founder of the museum.

Access to the Autry Research Centerwhich features a reading room, extensive closed stacks areas, and a film vaultis by application only. You can download an application to use the center's facilities from the Autry website at www.autry-museum.org. Just follow the instructions on the screen. The center is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., except for holidays. It is a member of the Research Libraries Group, and its holdings are entered into the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) database. Access to the online public catalog is also available via modem by dialing: 323-913-5848.

Southwestern University School of Law Library

On Sept. 26, 1929, Bullock's, for decades a major department store chain in Southern California, opened its doors on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. No expense was spared in the design and construction of what John G. Bullock and P. G. Winnett called their "Contemporary Cathedral of Commerce." Designed by the father-and-son team of John and Donald Parkinson, the cast-stone-and-copper building has become one of the most admired and significant Art Deco structures in the world.

The building features exotic wood paneling; bronze, copper, and gunmetal elevator doors; hand-painted murals; and intricately crafted clocks and display cases. According to the Los Angeles Times' Pilar Viladas "everything was custom-made by a small army of designers, artists, and craftspeople, and nothing was ordinarythe antithesis of today's global branding. Bullock's Wilshire aimed to leave no consumer whim unmet. On the ground floor, the Saddle Shop had a life-size plaster horse, called Bullock's Barney, for riders to try out their new gear. The Doggery carried the latest in canine fashions. The MGM costume designer Irene got her own shopthe first department-store boutique devoted to a single American designerin 1935."

It was, Viladas continues, "A swank store in what was then a swank neighborhoodthe Brown Derby, Perino's and the Ambassador Hotel were at various times its neighbors Bullock's catered to the famous and Hollywood anecdotes abound. Angela Lansbury worked there as a salesclerk, as did her mother, who was fired for spending too much time playing with her customers in the toy department. Clark Gable ordered his-and-her ski suits for himself and his wife, Carole Lombard, while William Randolph Hearst stocked up on bathing suits for his guests at San Simeon. Marlene Dietrich came in after hours, while Mae West wouldn't come in at all; she had merchandise brought to her in her car. And although it's common nowadays to read about celebrity misbehavior in pricey shops, you'd be hard pressed to match the sight of a naked Judy Garland sitting on a dressing-room floor, drinking a martini."

After a series of economic turndowns affecting the surrounding neighborhood, and the bankruptcy of its parent company, Bullock's closed the doors on the store in 1993. The Southwestern School of Law purchased it a year later, spending $4.8 million to buy the building, then millions more to restore it, in the process uncovering long-buried murals, reproducing furniture and doing veritable archaeological digs to determine original paint colors.

Now the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it houses Southwestern's award-winning law library, a masterpiece of form and function and an eloquent testament to its commitment to both tradition and innovation.

Under the direction of a staff of highly knowledgeable librarians, the library features a major print and microform collection of more than 425,000 volumes, study, and research seating for 610, and computer labs with more than 80 workstations accessing a wide range of online services and software applicationsall custom-designed to mirror the building's unique style.

Usually, the library is open to the public only for special "Tea and Tour" programs, which include lunch in the restored, California-casual, pistachio green and face-powder pink, fifth-floor tea room. Tea and tour programs are scheduled during periods when classes are not in session, like Christmas and Spring breaksand reservations are required. However, arrangements are reportedly being made for some SLA attendees to visit the library.

The Southwestern University School of Law Library is located at 675 S. Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles. You can drive or walk by to see the exterior of the building, and, if you have QuickTime installed on your PC, take a virtual tour of the interior on the school's website at www.swlaw.edu/campus/virtualtour.html.