University of California, Berkeley Libraries
Twenty-six constituent and affiliated libraries combine to make the library system of the University of California, Berkeley the sixth-largest research library by number of volumes in the United States. The libraries together cover over 12 acre of land and compose one of the largest library complexes in the world. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.
Also recorded as University of California, Berkeley Library System · UC Berkeley Libraries · The UC Berkeley Library · UC Berkeley Library
University of California, Berkeley Libraries

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- UC Berkeley Libraries
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Twenty-six constituent and affiliated libraries combine to make the library system of the University of California, Berkeley the sixth-largest research library by number of volumes in the United States. The libraries together cover over 12 acre of land and compose one of the largest library complexes in the world. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.
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wikidata · Q7895160 · wikipedia · University of California, Berkeley Libraries
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — UC Berkeley Libraries • Established — 1868 • Num Branches — 19 subject libraries; 7 affiliated libraries • Collection Size — 14 million (books); 70,000 (serials) • Pop Served — 43,000 Cal faculty, staff and students in addition to the bay area • Budget — $50 million annually • Director — Suzanne Wones • Num Employees — Approximately 1,000 (212 librarians; 188 staff; ~ 600 student employees) • Website — http: www.lib.berkeley.edu/
Reading rooms
Reading rooms
• Illustration — Leutze's Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth hangs in the Heyns Reading Room of the Doe Library 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 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's Washington Crossing the Delaware, 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
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 Back-to-School Catalogue.
Main Stacks
Main Stacks
Underneath Doe is the Main (Gardner) Stacks, named after the 15th University of California President and Berkeley graduate, David P. Gardner. Built in 1994, these stacks contain 52 mi 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
Bancroft Library
On the east side of Doe is the Bancroft Library, "one of the most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States." 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. Today, the library also houses the largest collection of ancient papyri in the Western Hemisphere, 300 medieval 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's The Odyssey and Euripides's work from ancient Greece.
Other libraries
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.
Affiliated libraries
Affiliated libraries
• Environmental Design Archives • Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library • Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library • Law Library • Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive • Graduate Theological Union Library • Library of French Thought
Places
Named by the record
Places
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- United States
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 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. 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.
List of libraries and departmental collections
List of libraries and departmental collections
• Doe Library • Moffitt Library • Bancroft Library • Environmental Design Library • Main (Gardner) Stacks • Morrison Library • Art History/Classics Library • Marian Koshland Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library • Thomas J. Long Business and Economics Library • Ethnic Studies Library • Chemistry, Astronomy & Physics Library • Earth Sciences & Map Library • Institute of Governmental Studies Library • C.V. Starr East Asian Library • Grimes Engineering Library • Graduate Services • Northern Regional Library Facility • Newspapers & Microforms Library • Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library • Social Research Library • South/Southeast Asia Library
Context
Primary material
Context
The circumstances in which University of California, Berkeley Libraries stands. Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles / Mirella Ferrari; edited by R.H. University of California, Berkeley Libraries is recorded at coordinates 37.8721, -122.2596. Libraries has its headquarters at Berkeley. Recorded as publishing house. Situated in United States. Libraries lies within Berkeley.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “University of California, Berkeley Libraries”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q7895160: University of California, Berkeley Libraries
General reference · Wikidata
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
“University of California, Berkeley Libraries”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further readingWikipedia
Secondary witnessauthority record
Wikidata, structured authority record Q7895160: University of California, Berkeley LibrariesWikidata
General reference
Further particulars
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Further particulars
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Constitution and standing. It is classified as library network and publishing house. It comprises Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, Bancroft Library, Morrison Library, Doe Memorial Library, Moffitt Library and George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library. Works and catalogued output.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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