Our Mission

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library advances research, teaching, and learning through the study, preservation, and interpretation of its rare books, manuscripts, and other special collections. Through research access, collections-based instruction, exhibitions, and academic programming, the Clark creates opportunities for students, scholars, artists, and the broader research community to engage deeply with the cultural and material record.

About the Clark

The UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is a rare book and manuscript library open to all researchers who wish to consult its holdings. Its internationally significant collections are especially rich in literature, history, art, and material culture from the early modern period through the early twentieth century, with extensive holdings relating to Britain and continental Europe.

Longstanding strengths include seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies; Oscar Wilde, aestheticism, and decadence; fine printing, bibliography, and the history of the book; modern book arts; and the history and culture of the American West. The Clark continues to build upon these strengths, with growing emphasis on print culture and material bibliography; nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literary and cultural movements; women writers and the New Woman; queer writers, artists, and histories; and materials that open new perspectives across the Library’s historic holdings. New acquisitions and gifts respond to evolving scholarship, curricular needs, and emerging fields of study.

The Library occupies a 1926 Beaux-Arts building designed by architect Robert D. Farquhar and set within five landscaped acres in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. Designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #28, the historic property reflects the work and influence of several important figures in Southern California architecture and landscape design, including Farquhar, Mark Daniels, Wilbur D. Cook, Jr., and Ralph D. Cornell. Conceived as an integrated environment of architecture, gardens, art, and books, the building and grounds are integral to the Clark’s history and provide a distinctive setting for scholarship, instruction, and interpretation.

The Clark is part of UCLA’s Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies. Together, the Library and Center foster interdisciplinary scholarship and intellectual exchange through fellowships, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and creative programs.

How We Fulfill Our Mission

Research and Access

Our holdings are available to anyone with a research need. Materials may be consulted onsite in the Reading Room and, as resources allow, through digitization and remote research services. We welcome researchers regardless of institutional affiliation or level of academic experience.

We facilitate discovery through thoughtful description, multiple points of access, and adherence to professional and international standards.

Teaching and Learning

We collaborate with UCLA faculty and instructors, as well as academic partners beyond UCLA, to integrate rare books, manuscripts, archives, and other primary sources into undergraduate and graduate education.

Working directly with original materials allows students to investigate how texts and objects are made, circulated, collected, interpreted, and preserved, while developing the skills and questions necessary for primary-source research.

Collections and Stewardship

We preserve the materials entrusted to our care while developing the collection in response to scholarship, teaching, and new directions in the fields we support.

Our collecting builds upon historic strengths while expanding their geographic, cultural, and intellectual range. We seek materials that create connections across existing holdings and bring greater visibility to voices, experiences, and histories that have been obscured, undertold, or excluded from collecting practices of the past.

We recognize that cataloging and description shape what can be found and how it is understood. We work to identify and address historical biases in legacy description while continually examining and improving our own practices.

Exhibitions and Academic Programs

Exhibitions, lectures, conferences, workshops, seminars, performances, and other programs offer opportunities to explore the scholarly, artistic, and historical questions generated by the Clark’s holdings.

Bringing researchers, students, faculty, artists, and the wider public into conversation, these activities encourage interpretation across disciplines and creative practices.

The Clark and UCLA

As part of UCLA, the Clark contributes to the mission of a public research university by preserving significant cultural materials and ensuring their continued role in inquiry, education, and the creation of new knowledge.

In keeping with William Andrews Clark, Jr.’s vision for the Library and its grounds as resources for the public good, we understand stewardship to encompass both preservation and the continued intellectual life of the materials and historic environment in our care.