Shades of L.A.

It had just been a handful of months since Carolyn Kozo Cole had taken over the mammoth job as curator of the Los Angeles Public Library's then-2.2-million piece photo collection. The biggest challenge, though, wasn't managing the breadth or depth of its existing holdings -- a complex trove detailing L.A.'s speedy and massive growth -- its shifting skyline, the iconic architecture, the development of its signature highways. The dilemma was, in fact, confronting the vast expanse of what wasn't there -- the lives and stories of "other L.A.s" that had tumbled off into the margins.

p>For the next six years, Cole with the assist of Kobayashi, project coordinator Amy Kitchener and a quickly-assembled (and steady-growing) group of dedicated volunteers would seek to fill in the vital gaps in the story of Los Angeles. Cole figured, if the photographic history of these neighborhoods hadn't made their way to library by the usual channels (newspaper photographs, corporate or personal archive donations among them); the librarians resolved they would have to go to them, in that unwavering decision: "Shades of L.A." was born.