January Updates

Read about our Family Study Room, a traveling mascot, guided tours, and our winter and spring hours.

Family Study Room in the spotlight

If you bring kids with you to campus, we have just the space for you! Our Family Study Room on the third floor is set up to be shared by adults and kids of all ages, including infants. 

It’s first-come, first-served — just get the door code at the Book Checkout & Pickup Desk on the first floor, where you can also check out age-appropriate Kid Kits, Lego sets, puzzles, games, and other fun stuff.

Our children's book section is also nearby on the third floor. Look for the low shelves near the south-facing windows above Holloway Avenue.

Learn more: Kids & Families

 

Big-eyed brown teddy bear sitting in a bin of CDs in the Library Retrieval System

Traveling Cali Bear visits SFSU

The CSU Resource Sharing mascot, Cali Bear, has come to visit SFSU! 

Cali travels all over the state between interlibrary loan departments at CSU libraries, and she will be helping us with all things interlibrary loan for the next few weeks. 

Follow her journey on our Instagram!

 

Quick tips 

  • Power up! You can borrow chargers and adapters from the Book Checkout & Pickup Desk for four hours at a time. 

  • Time to refuel? Find always-open vending machines with snacks and beverages on the first, third, and fourth floors. Look for the purple Refuel signs!

Explore your Library with us

Join us for a guided tour of our building and website to discover spaces, services, and resources that might surprise you! 

Tours will run daily at various times, starting a week before spring classes.

Learn more: Library Tours: Jan. 20 – 30

This month’s calendar   

Visit the SFSU Library Hours page to check hours for specific days and services.

  • Jan. 2 — Library reopens with limited hours for winter session (Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.).

  • Jan. 19 — Library closed for MLK Day holiday.

  • Jan. 20 — First day of Library 101 tours. Spring semester hours begin.

  • Jan. 26 — Spring classes get started! 

  • Jan. 27 & 29 — Discover Your Local Libraries events

The Stubborn 1,000: The Watsonville Canneries Strike | ongoing exhibit until April 16

A Labor Archives Exhibition

Special Collections Gallery, J. Paul Leonard Library, fourth floor

Tuesday – Thursday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. | Closing April 16, 2026

 

The Watsonville Canneries Strike, 1985 – 1987

Watsonville, in the heart of the agricultural Pajaro Valley, was once known as the "frozen food capital of the world" with a large number of canneries processing the majority of frozen food products sold in the United States. In September 1985, nearly half of the town's 4,000 cannery workers went out on a strike to protest reductions in wages and benefits at the Watsonville Canning and Shaw Frozen Food Companies.

The strike was led predominantly by Mexican and Mexican-American women. They went up against the cannery owners, the powerful agribusiness machine, local police, and their own union, which had become entrenched and unresponsive. After battling for 18 months, strikers rejected an initial poor settlement negotiated by the union, pushing back against larger pay cuts and winning medical benefits for all workers, seniority rights and striker amnesty. But most of all, they gained organizing and leadership skills and a voice in the future of their community.

As striker Margarita Páramo explained: "We knew we had won, and we began to feel that we had won more than the strike, ganamos dignidad y un futuro bueno para nuestros hijos" (we won dignity and a good future for our children).

This exhibition was generously funded by the Friends of the J. Paul Leonard Library.

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