#californiaculture — Public Fediverse posts

CSUN: CSUN Gets Grant to Digitize Its Collection of Images by Pioneering Photographer Vera Jackson . “Her photos captured life in Black Los Angeles during the 1940s and ’50s. Vera Jackson, the only woman who worked in the 1940s as a staff photographer for The California Eagle — the oldest Black newspaper — captured images of weddings, society events and protests, chronicling every-day […]

LAist: An oral history project captures stories in and around K-Town. Now anyone can dive in. “Lauren Kim works alongside her father, Hanjik, at his traditional medicine clinic on the border of Koreatown and MacArthur Park. But it took an oral history interview for her to hear parts of his story for the first time…. Now that interview, along with hundreds of others about life in and around […]

SF Gate: SF Public Library launches massive, historical platform free to public. “The San Francisco Public Library announced this week that it has launched a new platform for its digital archive featuring more than 80,000 pieces of historical items that are free to access for the public. The archive, called DigitalSF, includes historical photographs dating back to before the city was founded, […]

Culture OC: Orange County’s Acjachemen Nation Maps 10,000 Years of History for Its First Digital Archive. “Orange County’s Acjachemen Nation, the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (JBMI), is building a digital archive for the first time. The Acjachemen Nation (pronounced ah-HAWSH-eh-men) originally inhabited what is now Orange County for as long as 10,000 years. The Acjachemen and the Tongva […]

UC Riverside: UCR historian awarded NEH grant to expand Early California Population Project. “The grant will enable [Professor Steven] Hackel to lead a comprehensive expansion and redesign of the ECPP database, dubbed ECPP 2.0. The expansion will incorporate roughly 20,000 records of immigrants, creating a fuller picture of the intertwined lives of Native peoples and settlers, as well as the […]

Loyola Marymount University: Stories, Photographs, Artifacts from Palo Verde, La Loma, Bishop Residents Preserved in New Digital Archive Created in Partnership with LMU. “Former residents of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop, commonly referred to as Chavez Ravine, have unveiled a digital archival collection documenting and preserving the histories of these Los Angeles neighborhoods from the 1910s […]

Ingleside Light: Huge Scale Model Of San Francisco Finds A Home At Long Last. “A huge scale model of the City by the Bay made by artists during the Great Depression will go on display later this year. After years of searching and an attempt to locate the model in Ingleside, the San Francisco Scale Model Project announced that a home has been found for the 1,500-square-foot wooden model of San […]

East Bay Express: Oakland archivists protect Black queer history from disappearing. “For queers, the holy sites are third spaces—those temples of acceptance: bars, cafes, bookstores, archives. On June 13, 2026, a house in the Eastmont Hills was activated as one. Inside, in acid-free sleeves and Hollinger boxes, the relics waited: a black-and-white photograph of a 1976 march down Market […]

UC Davis Library: What’s New in Digital Collections. “Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of 12 collections which have been added to the library’s Digital Collections in the last six months. Spanning the years 1880 (Mundell and Whiting diary) to 2007 (Mom… Guess What…! issues), the recently digitized items include oral histories, diaries, […]

California State Library: State Library Awards $750,000 to Preserve and Make Accessible California’s LGBTQ+ History. “The California State Library announces the award of $750,000 in grant funds to ensure the physical and digital preservation and increased accessibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer archives relating to LGBTQ+ history in California.”

This launched in January when I was in the middle of moving and mourning my Granny so I missed it. California State Library: California State Library Announces Release of Newly Digitized Prison Press Collection Spanning 1915-1991. “Featuring 21 distinct periodicals created by incarcerated writers, editors, and artists, this California Prison Press collection offers an unparalleled window into […]

Daily Bruin: UCLA historians preserve documents, photos in ‘Power from the Past’ online archive. “UCLA historians launched a revamped digital labor history archive in April, preserving materials from movements led by Southern California unions. The Memory Work Research Initiative at UCLA – which the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment oversees – digitized documents, images […]

Local News Matters Bay Area: San Jose thrift shop turns vintage finds into funding for historic preservation efforts. “Housed in a 5,000-square-foot warehouse, the Found SJ Rummage & Reuse Hub provides a second life for items while supporting the efforts of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose. The nonprofit works to safeguard San Jose’s cultural heritage and unique buildings, and […]

University of California San Francisco: UCSF Print News Preserved and Digitized Through California Revealed . “Thanks to generous support from California Revealed, a state-wide initiative to digitize, preserve, and provide online access to materials documenting California’s history, art, and culture, UCSF Archives and Special Collections now offers expanded digital access to more than 4,600 […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/02/university-of-california-san-francisco-ucsf-print-news-preserved-and-digitized-through-california-revealed/

New-to-Me, from Editor & Publisher: Mapping Black California turns data into stories of equity and resilience. “The team frequently utilizes ArcGIS, an advanced software application used to create interactive maps, to visualize concerns related to racial inequity. With the world literally at their fingertips, they’ve explored how cities spend their money on policing, where money goes in […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/10/11/editor-publisher-mapping-black-california-turns-data-into-stories-of-equity-and-resilience/

New-to-me, from KQED: He’s Saving 20,000 Tapes of Underground Music and Making it Free to All. “On any given day, this is where you’ll find [Shayne] Stacy, the founder of the nonprofit Sacramento Music Archive. Just a half-hour’s drive from Sutter’s Mill and its famous California discovery, Stacy tends methodically to his own goldmine: a mass of underground music from Sacramento, the […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/07/kqed-hes-saving-20000-tapes-of-underground-music-and-making-it-free-to-all/

UC Santa Cruz: Announcement: New Online Archive of California. “Many researchers use the Online Archive of California (OAC) to access descriptive information about archival collections across the state, including at UCSC. We are excited to announce that the California Digital Library recently upgraded this site, which they have completely rebuilt adapting community-supported open source […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/29/announcement-new-online-archive-of-california-uc-santa-cruz/

Coachella Valley Independent: Losing Our History? Funding for the California Digital Newspaper Collection Was Restored—but UC Riverside Laid Off All of the Employees Responsible for the Project Anyway. “Despite all of this good news, however, the future of the California Digital Newspaper Collection (cdnc.ucr.edu) remains unclear—and Geiger is now unemployed, along with the rest of his […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/27/coachella-valley-independent-losing-our-history-funding-for-the-california-digital-newspaper-collection-was-restored-but-uc-riverside-laid-off-all-of-the-employees-responsible-for-the-projec/

Los Angeles Sentinel: Rare Recordings of L.A. Choirs to Be Part of Baylor University’s Black Gospel Archive. “‘The Saviour Home Record Library,’ an anthology of Los Angeles gospel choirs in the 1960s, is being made available online by the Black Gospel Archive and Listening Center at Baylor University. Compiled by B-movie filmmaker Jim “Buddy” Ball, the 40-album set features tracks that […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/25/los-angeles-sentinel-rare-recordings-of-l-a-choirs-to-be-part-of-baylor-universitys-black-gospel-archive/

Internet Archive: Community Webs Digitization Grant Reveals Stories of San Francisco’s Immigrant Communities . “In 2023, the Community Webs program was awarded a grant from the National Historical Publication and Records Commission for the ‘Collaborative Access to Diverse Public Library Local History Collections’ project. This grant supported the digitization of local history collections […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/18/internet-archive-community-webs-digitization-grant-reveals-stories-of-san-franciscos-immigrant-communities/

California State Library: Groundwork Announces Grants to 87 Cultural Heritage Organizations Across the State. This link goes to a PDF file. “The 87 organizations – from Alpine County in the north to San Diego County in the south — are receiving support ranging from environmental monitoring equipment, protective storage containers, map cases, disaster planning consultation, and disaster […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/22/california-state-library-groundwork-announces-grants-to-87-cultural-heritage-organizations-across-the-state/