Library to Get Newspaper’s History of L.A. : Collections: The clippings and pictures from the files of the defunct Herald Examiner from 1900 to 1989 will be organized and made available to the public.

Millions of clippings and photographs from the files of the defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner are going to the Los Angeles Public Library so they can be made available to the public.

The Board of Library Commissioners voted Thursday to accept the Hearst Corp.’s offer to donate the material. USC had also sought the collection.

The first of 115 files and a system of shelves, holding an estimated 2.6 million clippings, 2.3 million photographs and 830,000 negatives, were transferred Friday from the newspaper’s “morgue” to the library. The collection covers Los Angeles’ history from 1900 to 1989.

“This is a monumental task we are undertaking,” said Public Library spokesman Robert Reagan. “To just get these in usable order will take some time.”

Librarians hope to have the collection organized for public access by the spring of 1993, when the library is scheduled to occupy its new Central Library quarters, Reagan said. He said he expected the library to solicit grants to hire extra staff for the task.

“We are not going to put it in a warehouse and get around to doing something with it when we can,” Reagan said. “We are going to work on it immediately.”

In a letter to the library, Lee J. Guittar, Hearst Corp. vice president, wrote that his organization is “excited” by the library’s plans to improve access to the Herald material for students, scholars and history buffs.

“From our point of view, that access makes for the best possible future use of the Herald Examiner’s historic collection,” Guittar wrote.

When the Hearst-owned Los Angeles Examiner merged with the afternoon Herald-Express in 1962, the corporation turned over 2 million clippings and a million photographs from the Examiner to USC.

After the Herald Examiner folded on Nov. 2, 1989, with a jaunty headline reading, “So Long, L.A.!” USC had hoped to add the Herald’s clips and photos to its collection.

But John W. McCabe, chief operating officer of the Herald, recommended several months later that the contents of the paper’s “morgue” go to the public library.

“With due deference to USC, my rationale was that having it available to the public would give it more utilization than if it was stuck in some corner of USC,” he said.

The appraised value of the Herald collection was not disclosed.