History
The first gift of rare books to the University Libraries dates to 1911, providing the University of Southern California with the earliest institutional collection of rare books in Los Angeles. Gifts have been received steadily over the years. Systematic buying and opportunity purchases have added to our special collections, which now number to 130,000 volumes, and include rare book collections formerly maintained at the Hoose Library of Philosophy, Villa Aurora, the Hancock Library of Biology and Oceanography, and the Architecture and Fine Arts Library.
The USC Department of Special Collections was organized in 1963 in the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library, room 209, under the leadership of Robert Knutson, who served as head of the department until 1987. The department consolidated the rare book and manuscript collections previously located throughout Doheny Library. These collections included the large American Literature Collection, a cinema collection (including screenplays), maps, posters from the World Wars, and an oral history collection. The stated function of Special Collections was "to maintain, conserve, acquire and preserve materials of research value which cannot be served adequately or circulated, with full and firm control, through usual library routines."
Upon Dr. Knutson's retirement in 1987, the Department of Special Collections and the Cinema-TV Library were split administratively. Victoria Steele served as the Head of Special Collections from September 1988 through May 2000.
In 2000, Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections was formed by bringing together Special Collections, the Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, and the East Asian Library and Korean Heritage Library. From 2000 to 2001 John Ahouse and Marje Schuetze-Coburn served as co-directors of Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections. Currently Marje Schuetze-Coburn leads Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections as an associate executive director of the University Libraries.
Headquartered on the second floor of the Doheny Memorial Library, Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections occupies a distinguished suite of rooms designed in 1995 by the Los Angeles firm of Fields & Devereaux in collaboration with USC campus architects. The renovation of the second floor space and creation of the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library was made possible by a generous endowment from Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger.
The Feuchtwanger Memorial Library provides a beautiful and welcome setting for collaborative programming between the University Libraries and academic departments on campus. Over the past several years, the University Libraries and the Feuchtwanger Library have hosted poetry readings, lectures, staged readings and panel discussions.