SF Chronicle: UC Berkeley Libraries Saved With Influx of Cash

Updated January 30, 2014
Campus officials announce $4.6 million of additional funding for library (via The Daily Californian)

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer announced $4.6 million in additional campus funding for the library — which includes Doe and Moffitt Libraries, as well as all subject specialty, affiliated and stand-alone campus libraries — in an email to students, staff and faculty that alluded to a long history of past efforts to improve library services and expand its catalog. The plans, slated to be implemented in 2014-15, also call for $1 million from campus deans and $1 million in savings from reorganization and redeployment of library resources.
“It’s been a real jewel for Berkeley to have our library,” said Elizabeth Deakin, chair of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate. “That’s why we’re willing to stretch ourselves to find funding to make sure that we’re able to keep it a great library.”

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

UC Berkeley’s troubled system of two dozen libraries will receive a yearly infusion of cash under a new plan that is nothing short of a rescue mission for the intellectual centerpiece of the great university.
The plan will pull in about $6 million a year in new money from a variety of sources, some of it still undetermined. The libraries – known collectively as “the Library”- will also shave $2 million from their costs by drawing down on reserve funds and becoming more efficient.
With the new money, the Library expects to hire more librarians, expand collections, develop an online course on library literacy and increase hours at the undergraduate Moffitt Library.
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“This is good news for everyone on campus who walks into the Library – or visits from afar through the millions of dollars that we spend to put the latest scholarship online,” [University Librarian Tom] Leonard said, noting that more people than ever use the Library: “kids spending long hours in the libraries and growing use by people of all ages of e-books, e-journals, anything that can be summoned up on our website.”

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See Also:  Commission on the Future of the University of California Berkeley Library Issues Final Report (October 17, 2014)
See Also: UC Berkeley: Teams of Library Employees to Investigate Streamlining Measures (April 23, 2012)

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