Ayn Rand lived in Los Angeles twice during her lifetime. Her papers document the work she completed while living here.

The institution has Special Collections including: 1) Local history; 2) American religious history; and 3) history of the American west. Under Local History, the Azusa-Foothill Citrus Collection consists of manuscripts, legal and business papers, financial journals and ledgers, photographs and maps dating back to 1844. The Sayre MacNeil Collection contains family papers and correspondences, and…

The Japanese American Cultural and Community Center preserves and encourages appreciation of Japanese and Japanese American heritage and culture. The center's Franklin D. Murphy Library has a comprehensive collection of books in English and Japanese about the Japanese community in the United States. The library also holds books in English and Japanese about Japan and about Japanese culture, arts,…

The Japanese American National Museum holds a wide variety of materials documenting the Japanese American experience from a Japanese American perspective. Built around broad historical eras and themes of Japanese American experience, the holdings are used to fulfill the museum’s mission "to promote understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese…

The June L. Mazer Lesbian Collection, formerly the West Coast Lesbian Collections, was founded in Oakland, California, in 1981. Six years later it was moved to Los Angeles by Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres, and it acquired its present name in 1987 after the death of June L. Mazer, a community activist and an invaluable supporter of the collection.

Collections include pamphlets and ephemera documenting the growth, industries, transportation, and social organizations of Los Angeles and greater southern California; photograph collections; thousands of books related to southern California; and numerous archival collections related to indiviuals, the citrus industry, and businesses in the Inland Empire.