UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley’s Doe Library celebrates 100 years

To commemorate its 100th birthday, staff at the Doe Library built a "100" sign made up of old Union Catalog books. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

Hundreds of people streamed through Doe Library on the UC Berkeley campus on Wednesday to eat cupcakes, listen to a Capella groups, learn from conservators how to repair rare books, and gawk at the enormous room that houses more than a century’s worth of newspapers.

Oh yeah, and they got a lot of free books as well.

It was the 100th anniversary of the dedication of Doe Library, the central library on the Cal campus. Architect John Galen Howard’s massive granite building, with its spectacular Morrison Library and Heyns and North Reading rooms, stands at the literal center of campus, right near Sather Tower.

Blue and gold balloons adorn the entrance to the Doe Library. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

The Heyns Reading Room at Doe Library. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

As part of the celebration, Doe gave away 3,000 books to interested students and visitors. The line to get into the book room snaked through the corridors. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

David Duer, the library's director of development, shows off one of the old books that the library was giving away during its 100th birthday celebration. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

Makiko Tsunoda talks to visitors about how she preserves and repairs an old poster. The Library Preservation Department serves the campus' 32 libraries and is prepared to rush in during disasters to quickly cart away the most precious works. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

Martha Little talks about how she uses Japanese paper and wheat paste to repair a 19th century Harper's magazine. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

The UC Men's Octet was one of the many performances presented during the Doe birthday celebration. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

To find out about more events in Berkeley and nearby, visit Berkeleyside’s Events Calendar. We also encourage you to submit your own events.

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  • Susan KLee

    In about 1975, before “glasnost,” the opening of the Soviet Union and its satellites, when I was on the International House staff, we had a visitor from Czechoslovakia [its name at the time]. I took her to the Doe periodicals room. For decades, she had not seen a newspaper other than the ones the Czech government authorized.  She began to cry: she could hardly take in the quantity, much less the significance, of the hundreds of newspapers from all over the world ranged in front of her.  I think she remained in that room for six hours.

     

  • Judith Harris-Frisk

     Susan, thank you for that wonderful and poignant story!