The UCLA Library has launched "Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-90," an online collection of more than 5,000 photographs from the Los Angeles Daily News and the Los Angeles Times.

"This important resource will benefit students and faculty at UCLA as well as local historians and educators throughout Southern California," said University Librarian Gary E. Strong. "The images it contains document some of the most pivotal events and important individuals in the region's history, and many of the subjects can be further explored through the rich and varied materials housed in the Library's special collections."

The collection is available at http://digital.library.ucla.edu/latimesanddailynews.

The digitized images have been selected from the photographic archives of both newspapers, which are housed in the Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections. Those archives total some 3 million images chronicling the history and growth of Los Angeles from the 1920s to 1990.

The images in the online collection were selected because they show historically and socially significant people, places and events, as well as everyday life in Southern California. Subjects represented reflect broad categories of arts and culture, crime and law enforcement, the entertainment industry, politics, popular culture and trends, religion, sports, and urban and economic development. The digital files can be downloaded for educational and non-commercial uses; commercial uses are not allowed without advance written permission.

The Los Angeles Daily News Negatives collection contains some 200,000 film and glass negatives of photographs taken between 1923 and 1954. Started by Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. as the Illustrated Daily News in 1923, this newspaper merged with the Mirror in 1954 to become the Mirror-News and ceased publication in the early 1960s. The collection was given to the UCLA Library by the Times-Mirror Company in 1958.

The Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive contains negatives and prints documenting events and people in Southern California, the U.S. and the world. The material includes glass negatives (circa 1918-32), nitrate negatives (circa 1925-45) and safety negatives (circa 1935-present). The Times-Mirror Company gave the collection to the UCLA Library in several parts, beginning in 1982.

About the UCLA Library

Ranked among the top 10 research libraries in the U.S., the UCLA Library system is a campuswide network of libraries serving programs of study and research in many fields. Its collections encompass more than eight million volumes, as well as archives, audiovisual materials, corporate reports, government publications, microforms, technical reports and other scholarly resources. Nearly 80,000 serial titles are received regularly. The Library also provides access to a growing collection of digital resources, including reference works, electronic journals and other full-text titles and images.

The Research Library Department of Special Collections is recognized as one of the country's top collections of primary resources in the humanities, social sciences and visual arts. Its holdings encompass rare books and pamphlets from the 15th through the 20th centuries; extensive manuscript holdings; drawings, including original architectural drawings; early maps and atlases; and photographs, prints and paintings. Collections also contain artifacts, audiotape and videotape recordings, oral history transcripts, phonograph records, postcards and posters.