About the UCSC Library Digital Collections

Explore over 100,000 digitized items from UCSC Special Collections & Archives. This site is a living database with new photographs, documents, maps, audio and video added regularly. While only a small fraction of the Library’s archival collections are digitized, you can learn more about the unique archives from which these items originate in the Collection Guides linked to each item.

All Collections

Alexander Lowry Photographs

The Alexander Lowry collection consists of black and white photographs taken of downtown Santa Cruz, California, immediately after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake [and scenes of the University of California, Santa Cruz Campus].

35 items

Ansel Adams Photographs

This online collection consists of digitized images selected from the Library's 485 black and white, silver gelatin prints by Ansel Adams. Adams took the photographs between 1962 and 1968; they document the land, building sites, and early activities of the University of California Santa Cruz campus.

122 items

Atkinson Photographic Archive

In 2002, Richard C. Atkinson commissioned Alan Nyiri to photograph extraordinary architecture found on the ten University of California campuses. This collection contains the photographs of UC Santa Cruz.

74 items

Branson DeCou Archive

The Branson DeCou Archive consists of digitized images of hand-tinted 3-1/4 x 4 in. glass lantern slides used in years of travel lecture tours covering all countries of the world, from ca. 1920-1941. The physical archive is housed in the library’s Special Collection and Archives department and is divided into 7 series: Photographic Albums, Notebooks and Travelogues, Slides, Photographs, Negatives, Resource Material, and Artifacts. The majority of the materials are arranged into geographic divisions, by country or area. Geographic areas currently available: Cuba (79 images), Germany (344 images), Ireland (265 images), Italy (1460 images), Russia (249 images), Ukraine (36 images), and California (732 images).

3166 items

Cabrillo Music Festival of Contemporary Music Recordings Collection

Digitized from reel-to-reel tapes.

238 items

Carol Foote photographs of the University of California, Santa Cruz

This collection consists of images of campus life taken by Carol Foote at the University of California, Santa Cruz, from 1978 to 1982. Included are performances, portraits, landscapes, and projects, as well as visitors and events significant to campus history.

1334 items

Chuck and Esther Abbott Slide Collection

The Chuck and Esther Abbott Slide collection consists of slides of downtown Santa Cruz before and after the creation of the Pacific Garden mall.

100 items

Eric N. Schmidt papers

The collection contains images of the UCSC Farm and Garden Project. The photographs were taken by Eric N. Schmidt during his apprenticeship, and the images celebrate the land, the work, and the lives of staff and apprentices dedicated to the project.

53 items

Eric Thiermann photographs of the University of California, Santa Cruz

This collection contains images selected from 90 rolls of black and white negatives taken by Eric Thiermann, from 1966 to 1969. Most of the photographs were taken for the second Cowell College yearbook, "Markings ___67", when Thiermann was a member of the UCSC pioneer class. Included are performances, informal portraits, and student activities, as well as visitors and events significant to the student experience. Also included in the collection are images taken during the 1969 UCSC commencement weekend.

476 items

F. Louis Fackler scrapbooks

This collection includes five scrapbooks by Louis Fackler from the start of his employement with the University of California, Santa Cruz until his retirement in 1992. Included in the scrapbooks are news clippings, cards, letters, and photographs all documenting the very early campus planning and development.

5 items