Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research

{{Short description|Library in Los Angeles, California, United States}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research is an archive, library, and community organization in Los Angeles, California, which documents the history of radicalism and progressive movements in Southern California. It was founded by Tassia and Emil Freed.{{Cite web|url=https://laassubject.org/directory/profile/southern-california-library-social-studies-and-research|title=Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research|date=2016-06-03|website=LA as Subject|language=en|access-date=2020-04-01}}

Emil Freed was deeply involved in labor and political movements in Southern California and began collecting pamphlets and other materials from the organizations and individuals involved. Several people subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee and other similar bodies gave their personal libraries to Freed. He opened the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research in downtown Los Angeles in {{start date and age|1963|p=y}}, using the materials he collected over three decades as the founding collections. It moved in {{start date and age|1973|p=y}} to its present location in South-Central Los Angeles.{{Cite journal|last=Cooper|first=Sarah|date=1989|title=The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles|journal=The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy|volume=59|issue=1|pages=47–54|doi=10.1086/602082|jstor=4308327|issn=0024-2519}}

Holdings include collections documenting the history of resistance and civil rights, such as the Asociacion de Vendedores Ambulantes (Street Vendors Association) Records; Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Photograph Collection; and the Los Angeles Teachers Union Collection.{{Cite web|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/institutions/Southern+California+Library+for+Social+Studies+and+Research|title=Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Online Archive of California|website=oac.cdlib.org|access-date=2020-04-01}} Collections are in English, Spanish, and Yiddish and span from the 1920s to the present.{{Cite web|url=https://laassubject.org/directory/profile/southern-california-library-social-studies-and-research|title=Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research|date=2016-06-03|website=LA as Subject|language=en|access-date=2020-04-01}}

Sarah Cooper assumed the position of library director in 1983.{{Cite journal|last=Cooper|first=Sarah|date=1990-03-01|title=Sources on labor history at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research|journal=Labor History|volume=31|issue=1–2|pages=208–212|doi=10.1080/00236569000890331|issn=0023-656X}} In recognition of her work, in 1989, she was awarded the Archival Award of Excellence, administered by the California Heritage Preservation Commission of the California State Archives.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/admin-programs/chrab/award/aae-recipients/|title=Archival Award of Excellence Recipients {{!}} California Secretary of State|website=www.sos.ca.gov|access-date=2020-04-01}} The current library director is Yusef Omowale, the 2019 UCLA Activist-in-Residence at the Institute on Inequality and Democracy.{{Cite web|url=http://unequalcities.org/yusef-omowale/|title=Yusef Omowale|website=Unequal Cities|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-01}} He is focused in particular on building a collection that documents dispossession and displacement in Los Angeles.{{Cite web|url=https://luskin.ucla.edu/activists-in-residence-bring-pedagogy-and-methodologies-of-social-change-to-ucla|title=Activists-in-Residence Bring Pedagogy and Methodologies of Social Change to UCLA|last=Dunseith|first=Les|date=2019-01-23|website=UCLA Luskin|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-01}}