We've got your history!
Berkeley History Room
2nd floor of the Central Library
2090 Kittredge St. (at Shattuck)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 981-6212
Open Tue, Fri, and Sat 1pm-5pm
After hours call (510) 981-6148
Although the Library has long collected books on Berkeley, the Berkeley History Room provides a space dedicated to an expanded collection of historical materials, sure to be of interest to genealogists, researchers, students, scholars, and especially the historically curious.
The California State Library recently awarded the Berkeley History Room a grant to digitized several historical images for presentation on this website. Look for them here in the near future.
Available in the Berkeley History Room
- A near-complete set of Berkeley High's Olla Podrida
- Oakland-Berkeley city directories (1892 to 1943)
- Local telephone directories (1943 to the present)
- Berkeley City Council minutes back to 1930
- Berkeley Daily Gazette on microfilm from 1894 to 1983
- Blue and Gold yearbooks from the University of California
- Berkeley Sanborn maps (in print, on microfilm, and soon online)
- Near-complete runs of some hard-to-find local publications, including the Berkeley Barb, Tribe, Berkeley Insider, City Miner, Berkeley Viewpoint, Berkeley Samisdat Review, and the CNA Newsletter
- Oral histories, city documents, local maps, brochures, pamphlets, clipping files (download a list of clipping files subject headings)
, postcards, photographs, and videos - The Library's own publications, including "Fiction Set in Berkeley" and an index to the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association's calendars
- The War File, clippings and pamphlets on Berkeley in World War II
- The Swingle Collection (books, promotional circulars and broadsides, photographs and photographic negatives, ephemeral items, manuscript materials) on the history and life of Berkeley from 1842 to 1942
Further information on Berkeley's history
- Berkeley Historical Society and Museum
- Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association
- Calisphere
- California Historical Society
- Oakland History Room, Oakland Public Library
- Bancroft Library, University of California
- Wikipedia Entry for Berkeley, California