Collection Highlights

The Africana Studies Collection is a scholarly and browsable collection, informed by practical living experiences, for our users, emphasizing African American and African diaspora materials. This collection includes collections that support African American and African diaspora research and teaching across the curriculum.

The SDSU Comic Arts Collection includes more than 100,000 published comics in addition to archival collections and ephemera, mini-comics and zines, cartoons in historic magazines, and a modest amount of original comic art. Secondary sources from the collection focus on research about comics. Primary source collection strengths emphasize alternative and independent titles, underground comix, drawn books and Modern Age comics, as well as materials that document the history of comic book culture, fandom and the creative process behind comic book production. Special attention is paid to collecting works that celebrate diversity, document the human condition and shed light on issues of social justice. Included in our holdings are the life’s work of American comic book author and cartoonist, Donna Barr, and the J. Gordon Melton Vampire Collection, which includes more than 10,000 comic books featuring vampires.

This collection was purchased with the Collection Equity and Outreach Award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Region 5. Books in this collection reflect health and wellness topics, specifically in underrepresented populations. It includes fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, and poetry representing diverse people, illnesses, and other health-related concerns.

The SDSU children’s and young adult book collection is an international, multicultural contemporary teaching collection and an historical research collection of 29,281 volumes, 6,219 of which are picture books. The SDSU children’s book collection opened in 1903, as the children's library for The Campus Laboratory School. When the Campus Laboratory School closed in 1970, the children’s library moved to the Malcolm A. Love Library (https://education.sdsu.edu/about/coe-history). It includes The Helen and Peter Neumeyer Collection, The Judith Josephson Family Endowment Collection, The Clara Breed/San Diego Public Library Historical Children's Collection, The Evangelina Bustamente Jones Bilingual Books and Books in Spanish and Indigenous Languages Classroom Teacher Collection, The Mary Louise Olson Collection, and much more.

This collection covers topics related to the protests occurring across the United States after the death of George Floyd that resulted in San Diego State University Senate Resolution in Response to the Racial Violence Targeting Black People and Communities in the United States. Materials found in this collection include those on race discrimination, anti-racism, police violence, and systemic racism in America. Materials found here also include those on policy studies and discrimination in criminal justice administration, law enforcement, and policing. In addition, this collection includes materials pertaining to African-American communities, Black communities, genocide, and human rights. Materials in this collection support curriculum built around the topic of race relations in criminal justice and support the course Blacks in the American Justice System. This collection also includes broad collections supporting research and teaching on social justice topics, diversity, equity and inclusion across the curriculum at SDSU.

Spanish language rock music sound recordings.

The Department of Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA) houses rare, fine, unique, and valuable books, periodicals, manuscripts, and documents which require preservation, security and care in handling. Other valuable historical items such as photographs, prints, postcards, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and oral histories are also held in Special Collections. University Archives holds materials which document the history of San Diego State since its founding as a Normal School in 1897.

In 2009, the SDSU Library acquired the personal library of artist, author, and book designer Edward St. John Gorey. The materials in this collection are those books that Gorey collected during the 20th century.

San Diego State University is a member of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and a California State Documents depository.