"One of the University of California, Berkeley's premier special collections libraries, it reopened this week with regular hours following a three-year, $64 million seismic retrofit and upgrade financed in equal amounts by the state and more than 700 private donors.

'The renovations vastly improve our capability to serve the public,' said Charles Faulhaber, the library's James D. Hart Director, noting that the project was completed on time and within budget.

Over the winter break, Bancroft was open with limited hours. With the start of the spring semester on Tuesday (Jan. 20), it resumed operation from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

Visitors now encounter a warm and welcoming public entry into a Beaux Arts-style rotunda with marble and onyx floors that contain cast bronze medallions representing key collections. Soft lighting flows through a gold-leaf dome and a grand staircase ascends to the second floor. These new features give the library an elegance that befits its priceless holdings." - Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations

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The Bancroft Library is now open on the Berkeley campus in the completely renovated Doe Library Annex.

Hours
1 - 5 p.m. weekdays until January 16
10 a.m. - 5 p.m. weekdays as of January 20

Before going upstairs to the Heller Reading Room, users should deposit all items not necessary for their research (e.g., bags, large purses, knapsacks) in the lockers to the right of the east entrance. Please retain identification.

Enter past the security guard and up the stairs to the Heller Reading Room. Already registered users need only show their identification. New users will have to fill out a one-page registration form and show two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID.

The Bancroft Library will REOPEN on January 5, 2009 at 1 pm.

During the closure period, the Bancroft Reference, Duplication, and Permissions services will be operating on a very limited basis due to the inaccessibility of our collections.

More information is available at "Construction News"

"With all the talk of budget slashing, it's nice every once in a while to hear of a project getting an infusion of cash. And we're a little biased, but we really like California's recent recipient of the Save America's Treasures program.

The San Francisco Examiner Photograph Archive at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library will get $158,000 to preserve old and threatened photo negatives. The program is a partnership of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Parks Service.

The archive was donated in 2006 by the family that bought the Examiner from the Hearst Corp. The 3.6 million negatives and 1 million prints catalog 70 years of life in San Francisco, Northern California and the American West.

Forty projects were given grants. And while we're partial to, ahem, preserving newspapers (both past and future!), there were many other interesting grant recipients, including a Montana mining ghost town, a historic prison in Pennsylvania, and Woodrow Wilson's childhood home in South Carolina." - Audrey Cooper, The Chronicle's San Francisco editor

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Mark Twain at Play
December 1st 2008 - March 31st 2009
10 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday

Please note that the exhibition will be closed for the Library's Winter Holiday Closure period of December 24th through January 4th.

How did Mark Twain spend his time when the "bread-and-butter element" was put aside and he was free to relax and amuse himself? This exhibition provides a broad view of his leisure pursuits, from amateur theatricals to yachting - and explores the permeable border between his "play" and his "work." As the author said in 1905, "What I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it."

The exhibit is in the Bancroft's new Gallery, located in the Bancroft's Rotunda lobby immediately inside the front entrance. Visitors can check in at the Reception Desk in the Rotunda. The Gallery is the only area of the Bancroft Library that will be accessible to the public before January 5th.