The Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies was founded in 1985 with a donation of an 80,000 volume book collection related mainly to the study of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. However, this first donation also included books and pamphlets related to Alta and Baja California, the U.S. Hispanic Southwest, the U.S.-Mexico border region, and a small collection of early 20th…

The materials of the Regional History Collection document 100 years of Southern California history in various formats. The collection was founded in the mid-1970s as a repository for the papers of Southern Californian political figures, among them Governor Jerry Brown Jr., Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke; and Congressmen Alphonso Bell, Chet Holifield, Craig Hosmer, and Gordon McDonough.