We invite graduate students, undergraduates, and independent scholars to apply by Feb. 5, 2024
The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley is pleased to announce we are now accepting applications for our 2024-25 fellowships and awards, available to graduate students, undergraduates, and independent scholars conducting research in our special collections. The Bancroft Library is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive research environment, and seeks to support students and scholars using the collections both for traditional archival and bibliographic research, as well as those wishing to use the collections for creative projects.
Applications are due February 5, 2024, at 5 p.m., with decisions to be made by early April 2024.
Research areas
Several fellowships offer funding for research that would benefit from the use of any source materials in The Bancroft Library. Other fellowships are focused around specific subject areas. Our fellowships and awards range in amounts.
Our 2024-25 fellowships and awards are in the following research areas:
- Research that would benefit from the use of any source materials in the Bancroft
- History of California
- Nineteenth century American West and related topics
- Jewish experience in California from 1848 to 1915
- Print culture in any part of the Western Hemisphere, or any investigation of the history of the book in the Americas
How to apply
Our Fellowships and Awards website has details about all the eligibility criteria for each fellowship or award, and the application process. Some opportunities are designated for Berkeley undergraduates, some for graduate students at any University of California campus, and some are open to students at any college or university or independent scholars —complete descriptions are on the website.
Please share this announcement with undergraduate and graduate students, and anyone else who may be interested in The Bancroft Library’s fellowship program.
About the Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library is the primary special collections library at UC Berkeley, and one of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States. Bancroft supports major research and instructional activities and plays a leading role in the development of the university’s research collections.
Since Bancroft is a reference library, its collections are non-circulating, which means they are only available for your use in the Heller Reading Room. Fellowships and Awards facilitate this in-person research.
The Bancroft Library welcomes researchers from the UC Berkeley campus, nationally, and from around the world. Our holdings currently include: more than 600,000 volumes; 60 million manuscript items; 8 million photographs/pictorial materials; over 3 million digital files; 43,000 microforms; and 23,000 maps.
People worldwide can access Bancroft’s digital collections, which include digitized materials from the library’s extensive and ever-growing holdings, as well as born digital materials collected as part of our archival manuscript and pictorial collections.