Vision statement
UCSF Archives and Special Collections is a dynamic health sciences research center that contributes to innovative scholarship, actively engages users through educational activities, preserves past knowledge, enables collaborative research experiences to address contemporary challenges, and translates scientific research into patient care.
Mission statement
The mission of UCSF Archives and Special Collections is to identify, collect, organize, interpret, and maintain rare and unique material to support research and teaching of the health sciences and medical humanities and to preserve institutional memory.
Statement on inclusion and equity
We acknowledge historical absences in library collections, including those of the University of California Libraries. We will develop practices that counteract a paradigm of racist, sexist, and white-centered collecting, description, instruction, and access. Metadata, digital exhibits, and archival descriptions in particular have disadvantaged communities of color, limited points of subject-based access, and contributed to a culture of exclusivity and inequity. We commit to immediate and enduring work to elevate the narratives, perspectives, and expertise of the marginalized: those who identify as Black, Indigenous, persons of color, immigrants, women, disabled people, and those from the LGBTQ+ communities. We recognize that this work is iterative and ongoing, inherently risky, and messy, but entirely necessary. Read full statement.
Projects and partnerships
Current
- Intrinsic Value art series celebrating the San Francisco Bay Area BIPOC community
- Artist in Residence program
- NHPRC Grant—Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections
- NEH Grant—The San Francisco Bay Area’s Response to the AIDS Epidemic: Digitizing, Reuniting, and Providing Universal Access to Historical AIDS Records
- Bay Area History of Medicine Society (BAHMS)
- LSTA grant for historical AIDS/HIV materials
- The Fourth Workshop on Scientific Archives
Publications and projects
List of publications and other projects based on research using our archival holdings.
Internship program
The UCSF Archives Internship Program provides an opportunity for students to gain valuable hands-on experience and a course credit.
Applications Open for 2025 Accessions Internship
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Archives and Special Collections is seeking an accessions intern to assist with UCSF’s records. Under the supervision of the director of archives and special collections research and collection management, the intern will gain hands-on and on-site experience in the archiving profession. Primary responsibilities include learning how to physically assess, re-house, stabilize, and arrange materials as appropriate, and write finding aids. This is a paid internship (hourly rate of
Connect with us
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Find us
Open to the public by appointment Wednesday – Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. If you have questions, please contact us.
530 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, Fifth Floor