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
Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones Photographs
This collection contains a selection of photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, whose work visually documents the people and landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area during a time of enormous social, political, and environmental change. Included here is the entirety of Baruch's work, from her earliest 1940s prints, taken during her time as a college student and novice photographer, to her later works in portraiture as a seasoned artist. Social consciousness permeated Baruch's themes centered around women, children, youth, and race, as evidenced by her most famous projects, such as The Black Panthers, Haight-Ashbury, and Walnut Grove, as well as her lesser-known works like Renaissance Faire, Zoo, and Children, They Grow in the City. In addition to Pirkle Jones' contributions to the Black Panther series of photographs, included here is his collaboration with Dorothea Lange, the photographic series, Death of a Valley.
7088 items
Santa Cruz County History Collections
Photographic images of Santa Cruz County from the late 1960s to the 1990s. Notable subjects include Santa Cruz architecture before and after the Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989).
4 items
Santa Cruz County historic photograph collection
This collection of photographs spans more than 100 years of Santa Cruz city and county development and activity. The photographs document communities and towns, some now gone; businesses and stores; industries: logging, mining, farming, ranching; the natural surroundings: beaches, forests, rivers, creeks, lagoons; cultural events and entertainment: theater, exhibits, celebrations, parades; institutions: government, churches, schools, libraries; military displays and recreation: team sports, camping, and fishing; and means of transportation: railroads, streetcars, airplanes, automobiles, ships and boats. It reveals the daily lives of Santa Cruz residents and where they lived, worked, played, and worshiped. The bulk of the photographs document the city of Santa Cruz, but there are many images of the North and South county as well. Other large portions include the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and Casino, and the nascent film industry in Santa Cruz including actors, directors, and film crews on location.
10658 items
Shakespeare Santa Cruz records
The Shakespeare Santa Cruz posters include posters from the 1982-2013 theatrical seasons of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, a professional repertory theater company formerly based in and supported by the University of California, Santa Cruz.
60 items
Sigrid McLaughlin photographs of the University of California, Santa Cruz
This collection consists of images of campus views, landmarks, students, and architecture taken by Sigrid McLaughlin at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1998 and 1999.
40 items
Steve Rees photographs of the University of California, Santa Cruz
This collection consists of images of campus life taken by Steve Rees at the University of California, Santa Cruz, from the fall of 1966 through the spring of 1967. These black and white, 35mm negatives chronicle the first year of Stevenson College for the Adlai E. Stevenson College Journal, 1967, the yearbook published by the pioneer class of the college. Included are performances, informal portraits, and student activities, as well as visitors and events significant to campus history.
353 items
Tina Silverstein slides of the University of California, Santa Cruz
The collection contains images of the UCSC Farm, taken by Tina Silverstein during her apprenticeship with the Agroecology Program, as it was then called. The images were captured on four different dates: August 1983, November 1984, May 1985, and December 1985, and include plantings, structures, garden art, and views of and from the Farm.
56 items
UC Santa Cruz Aerial Photographs Collection
This collection contains aerial imagery (photographs taken from the air) covering Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, and the southern portion of San Mateo Counties from 1928-2003. Each flight includes information about the geographic extent of the flight, the altitude of the aircraft, the scale of the resulting images, and the format of the original images. Most of the photos are black and white, with a few flights in color and color-infrared. The scale is the ratio between the size of the object in the photo compared to the actual size of the object, indicated by: 1:4200, 1:7200, etc. The smaller the number after the colon, the closer to the ground the picture was taken and the more detail that can be seen in the photos. Included here is an updated geo-rectified index of the photos in each flight, with the photo numbers indicated over a topographic map of the area of the flight, showing an approximate geographic location of each photo. Most of the flights were flown by or for federal government agencies, including the USGS, USDA, the US Forestry Service, and we believe they are in the public domain. For more information, see the library's aerial photo guide.
94 items
UC Santa Cruz Campus History Collections
This collection includes photographs and other material documenting the historical development, culture and social environment of one of the UC system's most beautiful campuses, the University of California, Santa Cruz.
22 items
UC Santa Cruz Campus Maps
This collection includes maps documenting the physical development of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Included are maps produced by the campus for promotional purposes as well as maps created in the course of planning future campus growth and those created by outside organizations, including the city of Santa Cruz to illustrate the impact of the campus on the larger community.
18 items