USC Libraries

06/09/2026

Our Emmy Award-winning co-production with PBS SoCal returns tonight. Four new episodes will explore Southern California's past through library and archival collections.

The Emmy Award-winning series returns with four new episodes exploring Southern California's past through library and archival collections.

06/04/2026

As the home of USC’s Phi Kappa Phi chapter, the USC Libraries help support the honor society’s mission of recognizing academic excellence across disciplines. Recent grants and scholarships from PKP are helping USC students—including Study Abroad Grant recipient Jashan Grewal—pursue their “love of learning” through research, creative projects, and international study.

Recent grants and scholarships from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi are helping students pursue their “love of learning” near and far.

06/03/2026

Our public television co-production with PBS SoCal recently received ten SoCal Journalism Award nominations from the Los Angeles Press Club and two Los Angeles Area Emmy Award nominations from the Television Academy.

The USC Libraries' public television co-production with PBS SoCal was recently nominated for multiple awards by two media industry groups.

05/15/2026

Congratulations to our 2026 PKP initiates!

This Wednesday, at ceremony in USC’s Bing Theatre, 160 students were initiated into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP). The organization's USC chapter, housed at the USC Libraries, is the university's oldest fully interdisciplinary honor society.

James Bullock, dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and an astrophysicist specializing in galaxy formation and dark matter, delivered the keynote address. Drawing on his own path from a childhood glimpse of the moon through a backyard telescope to his work with the James Webb Space Telescope, Bullock encouraged students to embrace the spirit of PKP’s motto—Philosophía Krateítõ Phõtôn, or "Let the love of learning rule humanity"—as a lifelong practice.

“The love of learning is what makes you willing to stay in that unfamiliar place long enough to enjoy what’s there,” Bullock said. He advised initiates, as they advance to the next stage of their careers, to “keep being curious.”

One hundred sixty USC students were initiated into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) at the May 13 ceremony.

05/11/2026

We recently partnered with the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and the USC Shoah Foundation to launch Voices of Survival, an immersive online platform that allows visitors to have real-time conversations with genocide survivors.

The immersive online platform allows visitors to have real-time conversations with genocide survivors.

04/21/2026

Want personalized help with your final papers? Next Tuesday, April 28, our librarians are teaming up with the Writing Program and Writing Center at USC Dornsife for the return of Paperpalooza.

Paperpalooza is one example of the many ways the USC Libraries support student success through instruction and research assistance throughout the academic year.

04/14/2026

Congratulations to this year's winners of our USC Libraries Research Award! The annual competition honors exceptional research that uses any of the resources available to students via the libraries—including books, journals, electronic databases, primary sources, reference consultations, and interlibrary loans.

The annual award honors exceptional research that uses any of the resources available to students via the libraries—including books, journals, electronic databases, primary sources, reference consultations, and interlibrary loans.

04/13/2026

Day of SCupport returns April 29, bringing the Trojan Family together for 24 hours of impact. Here's how you can support the USC Libraries: https://dayofscupport.usc.edu/c/libraries

03/27/2026

Applications are open now for the Phi Kappa Phi Undergraduate Summer Scholarship and the Carl and Sterling Franklin Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship.

03/26/2026

A USC librarian brought philosophy—and what he calls punk-rock librarianship—to the USC Prison Education Project.

Kevin Klipfel recently taught a seven-week course exploring how values shape the choices people make, and how wisdom can help people live with greater purpose and integrity.

For Klipfel, getting involved in prison education was not incidental to his identity as a librarian. “Democratizing information is the core historical value of librarianship,” he says. “Education as a fundamental human right is core to our very identity.”

Kevin Klipfel puts his vision of librarianship into practice through his work in the USC Dornsife Prison Education Project.