Inside the Vault

from Explore Magazine: Fall 2020

Five Decades, Countless Memories

Inside the Vault

Preserving History for the Future

Like an early architectural scheme for a miniature version of the Central University Library that would house UC San Diego’s rare and archival materials, Special Collections & Archives (SC&A) is a “micro” version of our larger library enterprise. Established 50 years ago by Melvin Voigt, our visionary first university librarian, SC&A performs all of the functions that take place in the other units of the Library plus a few more that are unique to SC&A.

What’s different about SC&A is our holdings: rare books, maps, manuscripts, photographs, recordings, art works, archives and even digital materials that distinguish the UC San Diego Library from other research libraries. From its inception, SC&A has focused on working collaboratively with UC San Diego faculty to build comprehensive collections that support campus academic programs. Dating from the 13th century and numbering 250,000 volumes and a few miles of manuscripts, collections focus on early voyages of exploration and discovery in the Pacific; the Spanish Civil War; oceanography; the culinary history of the West Coast and Latin America; modern American poetry; the anthropology of Oceania; the history of San Diego and the border region; Baja California; artists’ books; the history of contemporary science and technology; and the records of our own campus. Many of these collections have become the “library of record” for international scholarship and primary resources for students to experience, study and analyze.

While these materials connect us to the past, they also connect us to the international community of scholars and the greater San Diego community. During the Library’s infancy, the Friends of the UCSD Library and generous individuals offered support through gifts of funds and assistance with securing books and manuscripts. Today, most books for SC&A are purchased, but the majority of manuscript collections come about because of longtime relationships with San Diegans, such as Dr. Salk and Dr. Seuss.

For those unable to visit the Library in person, digitization has made many of our unique materials accessible to a wider range of patrons, and this type of outreach is an ongoing effort. We facilitate a significant volume of reference and publication requests from all parts of the globe via email, a service that has become increasingly valued during the current pandemic. While SC&A’s materials connect us to the past, our true mission is to share these treasures as widely as possible. Ultimately, the value is what students and scholars do with them through research, instruction and new scholarship that gives them a future.

Enjoy the images – a few of our favorite things from the vault!

Lynda Corey Claassen Director, Special Collections & Archives