The Chinese Historical Society of Southern California welcomes students, scholars and the general public to the Chinatown Heritage Center to conduct research in our archives, pursue our library, and talk to our resident historians.  Our goal is to share our digital assets, archival materials and physical library with the public who are searching for Chinese American, Asian American, and Chinese History resources. 

For over 45 years the Society has collected artifacts, books, magazines, reports, films, photographs, videos and oral histories.  These audio, visual and digital assets have been recently uploaded to our new Digital Archives.  We plan to launch the Digital Archive in the winter of 2022.   

In addition to the Digital Archives, CHSSC has increased Internet access to our vast archives by creating finding aids.  Our physical archives include archaeological collections, reports, theses, dissertations, personal family and institutional collections, music recordings, and textiles.  These finding aids are uploaded to the Online Archive of California (OAC).   The Online Archive of California provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the ten Universities of California (UC) campuses.  These gateways to digital media and finding aids allows for CHSSC’s assets to be available at any time to the global community.

The physical library at CHSSC contains over 2000 volumes relating to Chinese American history, Asian American history, California history, Chinese culture, children’s stories, fiction, and culinary arts.  All books are cataloged and available on Libib at chssc.libib.com.  Books are available for reference purposes only.