The Chicano Library Today

For 55 years, the Chicano Studies Library has been a home for knowledge, activism and community. With the sales of books, microfilmed newspapers and Chicano Database royalties, the Chicano Studies Library, and now the Ethnic Studies Library, have remained somewhat self-sufficient. The library’s autonomy and roots in community allowed it to thrive and to achieve many ambitious projects through the power of collective action.

While the Chicano Studies Library initially created collections, services and programs to meet the needs of local communities, its reach is much wider. Visiting scholars from around the world travel to study its unique collections. Authors of groundbreaking works acknowledge that their research would have been impossible without the Chicano Studies Collection or the support of Chicano Studies Library staff. Librarians on staff have been recognized nationally for their contributions to the fields of librarianship, Chicano Studies and beyond. The library’s achievements grew out of students and workers who wanted to gather Chicana/o/x books, journals, posters and artworks to learn from and make available for others. These materials were important for their sense of identity and community justice. The Chicano Studies Library was not ruled by the practices of mainstream librarianship and cleared its own path. It was not ruled by precedent, so it produced its own ways of knowing, collecting, organizing, describing, and publishing. In the end Chicana/o/x communities could say: this is ours.