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Doe Memorial Library reference desk

As of 2021, Berkeley's library system holds materials in more than 400 languages and contains over 13.5 million volumes. The libraries together cover over 12 acres (49,000 m²) 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.

Doe Memorial Library[edit]

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 Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library, while Doe serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center.

Reading rooms[edit]

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[edit]

The lobby of Doe features perpetually changing exhibits and also houses the Morrison Memorial Library. This library was a gift to the university by May T. Morrison in 1921 and is considered today to be a "no study library." Many of its collections are works of classic or contemporary fiction, and the mezzanine level contains a compact disc listening area. The library evokes the feeling of an East Coast country club and was featured in the 2000 Abercrombie & Fitch Back-to-School Catalogue.