Located on Level Three (L3) of the Goodhue Building  |  phone: 213-228-7350

 Online Appointment Form | Reader Registration Information

For general queries please contact aboyadjian@lapl.org

Hours of Operation

Items in the Rare Books Room are available by appointment only between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. If you're unable to visit on a weekday, we'll do our best to accommodate you.

Please note that materials are not available for check-out.

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To Make an Appointment

Please fill out this Online Appointment Form. A staff member will contact you within 24 hours. Virtual appointments of up to one hour can be accommodated for patrons unable to visit the Library in person.

If you are a first-time reader, please view the Reader Registration Information requirements.

Department Staff

• Ani Boyadjian, Department Manager, Research & Special Collections | 213-228-7223
• Dan Nishimoto, Acting Senior Librarian, Digitization & Special Collections | 213-228-7353

Materials & Collections

Rare books has over 22,000 volumes predominantly in English and Spanish, dating from the fifteenth century. The majority of materials were published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Our two largest special collections are Photographs and Maps, although only a small fraction of these collections are housed in the Rare Books Room.

The Los Angeles Public Library’s institutional archives are housed in Rare, as well as the Los Angeles Resistance and Brockman Gallery archives (finding aids are available via the Online Archive of California).

Core collections in the Rare Books Room include California History, Mexicana, Bullfighting, Pacific voyages, Food and wine, Costume, Travel in North America, Europe and the Near East, History of the book and printing, Ornithology and American Indians.

Other collections include the  Casey Fashion Plate Collection, the  Tom Owen Collection of Bookplate Art,  Japanese Prints, California Prints, Artists' Books, Travel posters, the Menu Collection, the Paul Fritzche Collection of Culinary Literature, the Cookery Ephemera Collection, Fruit Crate Labels, the Lummis Autograph Collection, the Gladys English Collection of American Children's Book Illustration, and the Behymer Opera Collection.