Day: January 22, 2009

Get reference help 24/7

Posted on by Lisa Ngo

It’s 11 pm and you are in desperate need of reference help from a librarian. You check the library’s website and see that the Science Libraries IM service (screenname: ucbscilibs) isn’t available, and the library’s not open. Your question is un-Google-able. Wikipedia has failed you. Despair not!

Get help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from a real live librarian* through the new Ask a Librarian service. Ask a Librarian is a chat reference service that connects you to a librarian and emails you a transcript of your chat so you can reference it later. Try it out at Ask a Librarian.

*Please note that the librarian you will be connected with may be a Berkeley librarian, a librarian from another UC, or a librarian from another University.

Retrofitted and revamped, Bancroft reopens to regular hours

Posted on by Lee Anne Titangos

“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

Click here for Full Article