Twenty-seven constituent and affiliated libraries combine to make the library system of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

the sixth largest research library by number of volumes in the United States. As of 2024, Berkeley's library system holds materials in more than 400 languages and includes more than 14 million volumes. The libraries together cover over of land and compose one of the largest library complexes in the world.06.12.97 - New addition to UC Berkeley Main Library dedicated to former UC President David Gardner
/ref> In 2003, the

Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 125 research library at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and research li ...

ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.

Doe Memorial Library

Charles Franklin Doe was the principal benefactor of the eponymous main library. The Doe Memorial Library, built in 1910, originally housed the main collections. A strictly Beaux-Arts Classical building, it was designed by campus architect

John Galen Howard John Galen Howard (May 8, 1864 – July 18, 1931) was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at several firms in both states and employed Julia Morgan early ...

as one of the original structures in the "Athens of the West" campus plan. The library was meant to be the first building students and visitors saw when entering the university, although today most students enter from the opposite side at

Sproul Plaza Sproul Plaza is one center of student activity at the University of California, Berkeley. It is divided into two sections: Upper Sproul and Lower Sproul. They are vertically separated by and linked by a set of stairs. History Sproul Plaza as ...

. Most of the main collections are now housed in the Main (Gardner) Stacks and the Northern Regional Library Facility, while Doe serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center.

Reading rooms

Inside Doe are the two largest reading rooms in the university, named the North and Heyns (East) reading rooms. The North Reading Room features a large

barrel-vaulted A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ceiling capped with a tall Roman-arched windows at each end. The Heyns Reading Room, named after Roger W. Heyns, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley from 1965 to 1971, is the smaller of the two and exhibits hand-carved wood ceilings depicting the names of famous academics throughout history, as well as the companion piece to

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-born American history painter, best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography Leutze was ...

's ''

Washington Crossing the Delaware Washington Crossing the Delaware may refer to: * George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary ...

'', ''Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth''. The piece was originally a gift to the university in 1882 by Mrs. Mark Hopkins but was soon forgotten after it was stored in the Hearst Women's Gymnasium. It was not until the 1960s, when Dr. Raymond L. Stehle was writing a biography of Leutze, that it was rediscovered and placed in the Heyns Reading Room. The North Reading Room features enormously high ceilings and was restored in 2005 to its original 1910 state. The renovated room features refinished historic tables and chairs, replaced floors, and task lighting similar to the original table lamps.

Lobby

The lobby of Doe features perpetually changing exhibits and also houses the Morrison Library. This library was a gift to the university by May T. Morrison in 1921 and is known as the university's “living room.” Many of its collections are works of classic or contemporary fiction. The library was featured in the 2000

Abercrombie & Fitch Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (A&F) is an American lifestyle store, lifestyle retailer, founded in 1892 which focuses on contemporary clothing targeting customers in their early 20's to mid 40's. Headquartered in New Albany, Ohio, the company operate ...

Back-to-School Catalogue.

Main Stacks

Underneath Doe is the Main (Gardner) Stacks, named after the 15th

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

President and Berkeley graduate, David P. Gardner. Built in 1994, these stacks contain of bookshelves and were intended to accommodate the growing library collections. Main Stacks consists of four underground floors, each roughly one-and-a-half football fields long and a football field wide. Although underground, it was built with four skylights that allow natural light to permeate even to the bottom floor.

Bancroft Library

On the east side of Doe is the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...

, "one of the most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States."Collections
/ref> This library contains over 60 million manuscript items, 600,000 volumes, 2.8 million photographs, 43,000 microforms, and 23,000 maps. The library originated in 1905 as a center for Latin-American History and Western Americana when it acquired the collections of Herbert Howe Bancroft and gained prominence under the leadership and research of Director

Herbert Eugene Bolton Herbert Eugene Bolton (July 20, 1870 – January 30, 1953) was an American historian who pioneered the study of the Spanish-American borderlands and was a prominent authority on Spanish American history. He originated what became known as the ...

. Today, the library also houses the largest collection of ancient

papyri Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can ...

in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

, 300

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

manuscripts, and thousands of rare and first-edition early European and American works. Some of the most famous library holdings are the ''Mark Twain Papers'', a collection of letters, journals, and nearly 600 manuscripts of unpublished works by Samuel L. Clemens, and pieces of

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's ''

The Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

'' and

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

's work from ancient Greece.

Other libraries

The library system also contains many other departmental and specialized libraries, including the 580,000 volume Marian Koshland Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library (the largest of its kind in the West), and the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, which features more than 260,000 books, printed music, recordings, microfilms, and rare materials.

List of libraries and departmental collections

* Doe Library *

Moffitt Library The James K. Moffitt Undergraduate Library, simply known as Moffitt Library, is a library situated at the crossroads of the University of California, Berkeley, designed by American activist John Carl Warnecke in the late 1960s as a cutting-ed ...

* George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library * Environmental Design Library * Main (Gardner) Stacks * Morrison Library * Art History/Classics Library * Marian Koshland Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library * Thomas L. Long Business and Economics Library * Chemistry, Astronomy & Physics Library * Earth Sciences & Map Library * C.V. Starr East Asian Library * Kresge Engineering Library * Mathematics Statistics Library * Graduate Services * Northern Regional Library Facility * Newspapers & Microforms Library * Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library * Social Research Library * South/Southeast Asia Library

Affiliated libraries

* Environmental Design Archives * Ethnic Studies Library * Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library * Institute of Governmental Studies Library * Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library * Law Library * Graduate Theological Union Library

Notes

References

* {{authority control University of California, Berkeley buildings California, Berkeley Library System California, Berkeley Library System Berkeley Library System 1868 establishments in California University and college buildings completed in 1868