USC Libraries

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.

Lost LA, a USC Libraries Co-Production With PBS SoCal, Returns for Its Ninth Season | USC Libraries The Emmy Award-winning series returns with four new episodes exploring Southern California's past through library and archival collections.

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.

PKP Awards Put the Motto to Work for USC Students | USC Libraries Recent grants and scholarships from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi are helping students pursue their “love of learning” near and far.

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.”

PKP Initiation Ceremony Honors Scholarly Excellence During USC’s Commencement Week | USC Libraries One hundred sixty USC students were initiated into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) at the May 13 ceremony.

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.

Voices of Survival Platform Launched with Illinois Holocaust Museum | USC Libraries The immersive online platform allows visitors to have real-time conversations with genocide survivors.