Our Mission

Established in 1969, the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Library was the first library in the United States to focus on the Mexican-descent population. Today, the CSRC Library is considered to hold among the most important national and international research collections in existence on the Chicana/o experience and has expanded to document Central Americans and other US Latine experiences. It continues to serve the needs of students and faculty at UCLA and around the world. In 2012, the CSRC’s “significant achievements in activism, education, outreach, publication, and service on pressing issues facing the Chicano and Latino communities” garnered it the first-ever Diversity Award from the Society of American Archivists.

The Library’s holdings consist of monographs, periodicals, subject files, dissertations and theses, as well as original prints by Chicana/o and Central American artists, films, videotapes, audio recordings, slides, and over 650 archival and manuscript collections. Of special note are holdings of monolingual and bilingual English and Spanish newspapers and journals published throughout the southwestern U.S. from the nineteenth century onward. The UCLA Library Research Guide for the CSRC provides more information.