Welcome to the new OAC website! The CDL is currently working on an upgrade of the Online Archive of California (OAC) platform, to be deployed in mid-July 2025.
This page includes previews of the new OAC website, including:
Search OAC
This video describes your options to “search” OAC’s collection guides. In this video, we highlight options to search across OAC’s sitewide contents. In OAC, you can discover over 60,000 collection guides - and counting!
OAC additionally offers options to search within a particular institution, or even within a specific collection guide. The search features demonstrated in this video are available at each of these different levels, and function similarly across the site.
Browse Partner Institutions
This video introduces options to browse and search within a particular contributing institution’s collection contents.
OAC partners with over 350 libraries, archives, and museums throughout California. Our contributing partners steward primary sources, which are organized into collections - these collections are described in collection guides, which offer summary information about the collection, as well as the type of records you might find.
Navigate Collection Guides
In this video, we take a look at an example of a classic collection guide in OAC, highlight key features available to navigate or search through the guide, and what you can do if you want to view a particular historical resource or use it in your research.