The University Library's Special Collections offers UCSC's academic community, visiting scholars, and the general public access to the library's most unique holdings. Established in the late 1960s, the department supports the University's academic program and its instructional and research interests. It also preserves and promotes collections that hold particular historical and cultural significance to an international scholarly community, houses and provides access to publications and archives focusing on the geographic region of Santa Cruz, and serves as the repository for UCSC administrative archives.

 Holdings range from manuscripts and rare books to local ephemera, works of art and audio and visual material. The collections afford opportunities for interdisciplinary research, particularly in fields such as the history of printing and book arts; modernism in art, literature, and photography; women’s and community studies; and local history.

Many of our collections focus on book arts and fine printing, including examples that show remarkable creativity and ingenuity in exploring inter-relationships among text, image, and object. Holdings in book arts range from a distinguished representative collection of 16th Century Italian printing to the archive of the Trianon Press, a French publisher of art and fine press books, most notably of exquisite facsimiles of the English artist, poet and mystic William Blake. Special Collections also houses the archive of the poet, novelist, and pacifist Kenneth Patchen, with over 100 examples of his painted picture poems, and also contains representative holdings from well known Northern California presses such as the Grabhorn and Arion presses, the Greenwood Press, and the Foolscap Press of Santa Cruz. It proudly displays the work of eminent printer William Everson and the productions of the Library’s own Lime Kiln Press (1967-1982). Additionally, Special Collections hosts a rich assortment of artist books from printers, bookmakers, and artists such as Felicia Rice, Gaza Bowen, and Julie Chen.

Particularly notable are Special Collections' exceptionally strong photographic archives that began with a gift in the late 1960s of Edward Weston's project prints. The photographic collections, now numbering close to half a million items, have continued to grow through the acquisition and archival gifts of works by contemporary photographers such as Morley Baer, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Philip Hyde, Pirkle Jones, Erik Lauritzen, Brett Weston, Verna Johnston, and Al Weber. Strong holdings of local historic photographs--from aerial views of the Northern California Coastline to depictions of the city of Santa Cruz at the turn of the century--can also be found.

For a list of photographers whose work is represented in the collection, click here.

Other notable named collections include the works of the American science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, the Neufeld Family archive of correspondence and artifacts relating to the Holocaust, the architectural archive of Marcel Sedletzky, and the Thomas Carlyle Collection featuring work on and by the Scottish historian, critic, and sociological writer.

Santa Cruz has a strong history of supporting activities of women. The archives of the Friday Shakespeare Club of Santa Cruz, the city’s first women’s club founded in 1903 reside in the Library. In addition, Special Collections hosts the records of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs and the archives of several important feminist presses such as the Shameless Hussy Press and Herbooks.

Special Collections is considered a major resource site for the study of Santa Cruz history and Santa Cruziana artifacts. It avidly collects publications by local authors and institutions and has acquired the archives of families and individuals who have shaped the region. Examples include the Porter family papers and the collections of Preston Sawyer.

The archives of early Santa Cruz County entrepreneur F. A. Hihn and his attorney Charles Younger are a major holding.

Special Collections also hosts the work of historian and archivist Leon Rowland.

Special Collections is the principal repository for the UCSC university archives, preserving non-current records and historical information documenting the campus, its people, its administration and its culture. UCSC Masters’ theses and Ph.D dissertations are made available through Special Collections, as are the papers of some of its most important faculty members and administrators. Notable holdings include the papers of Dean McHenry, the first UCSC Chancellor, the papers of feminist studies professor and politicial activist Bettina Aptheker, the papers of scientist and biology professor Kenneth Thimann, the papers of astronomer Sandra Faber, the papers of classics and comparative literature professor Norman O. Brown, and the papers, films, and recordings of anthropologist and naturalist Gregory Bateson.