California History Collections

Are you researching a California history topic? Come see us! Our huge collection of Californiana includes first hand-resources, such as letters, newspapers, pictures, maps and sheet music, as well as numerous books, periodicals and indexes, from every single county in California and a few from outside the state. Whether you're interested in 1960s protest movements, California's involvement in World War I, the Gold Rush or even pre-historic California, we'll have a resource for you.

Can't find what you're looking for? Don't give up yet! If you haven't already looked, we suggest that you search our catalog and the California Information File II. For more information, about what we have, please contact us, if we don't have an item, we can point you to the library section that might have it.

We are thrilled that you want to borrow our items! We loan our circulating books and periodicals directly to current state employees and indirectly to the general public via interlibrary loan. If you have any questions about borrowing our materials, please feel free to contact us.

Even if you can't make it into Sacramento, you can still use many of our materials. Depending on what you're interested in, you may be able to use our items by placing interlibrary loans at your local library, placing copy orders and even viewing some of our materials online, via Calisphere, the California Information File II, our online exhibits, or Internet Archive.

We are happy to offer a wide variety of reproduction options including photographic reproduction, copying services and digital reproductions. We also permit no-flash photography and make self-serve copying and scanning equipment available to our visitors. If you have any questions or you would like to place an order, please contact us.