Research Advisory Service

Writing a library research paper in the humanities, social sciences, or international and area studies? Seek professional help!

Cal undergraduates can make same-day appointments for 30-minute sessions with our research experts. We can help you focus your project, find the best information sources, and use them efficiently.

This semester, the service operates September 24 through November 21, Monday through Friday, 1-5pm (last appointment at 4:30).  Sign up at the Reference Desk, 2nd floor Doe Library, beginning at 9am.

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Exhibit: Collectors and collections of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library

A new exhibit features the diverse collections of UC Berkeley's East Asian Library. Located in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery, Doe Library, the exhibit runs through February 21, 2008.

Berkeley's East Asian collection began in 1896 with John Fryer's deposit of his personal library of 2,000 volumes. Over the years it has grown to become one of the largest and richest collections of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean materials in the United States. Among the items on display are Chinese woodblocks and manuscripts once in the collections of some of the most eminent bibliophiles of Qing and Republican China and early modern Japan, Japanese woodblock maps and miniature editions, Meiji era frontispieces hand printed from woodblocks, early movable-type printing from Korea, handwritten sutras dating to the seventh century, and Tibetan and Mongolian manuscripts.

This exhibit is one of many events marking the dedication in October 2007 of a new building for the C. V. Starr East Asian Library and Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies.

» Events
» Construction photos


Biographical Memoirs free online

The National Academy of Sciences recently announced that it "will publish its entire collection of Biographical Memoirs online. Although memoirs published since 1995 have been freely available online, over 900 memoirs published prior to 1995 were available previously only through archives and libraries." The online collection will eventually include all the memoirs back to 1877.

Biographical Memoirs provide biographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences. These biographies (in PDF) include Melvin Calvin, William Campbell, Griffith Evans, Joel Hildebrand, W. F. Giauque, Gilbert Lewis, Glenn Seaborg, and many more.

The print version is available at Q141.N2 in the Doe Library.