Annual Report of the Library 2000-2001

Dear Library Friends,
The 2000-2001 Annual Report marks the completion of my first year as University Librarian.

Though I have been a Cal faculty member since 1976, I am trying out the role of student again. The last time I took classes, libraries did not manage computer networks, instill information literacy, or stay open round the clock during finals. Librarians have learned how to orchestrate all of this, while preserving the treasures of our collection.

I suppose there may be challenges in Cal's teaching and research missions that confound librarians, but so far on the job, I have found none.

This Annual Report is not intended simply to be a summary of achievements. To me, it is more a conversation between the Library and its friends. Each of the scores of collections on campus is a special environment for learning. Students, faculty, independent scholars, and general readers come to us with different habits of mind. Our marvelous collections allow one person to find research breakthroughs in the Public Health Library, another to pass an hour with a mystery thriller in the Morrison Room, another to trace the voyages of Vikings in the Gardner Stacks. Our business is to satisfy the curious, and I am always happy to hear directly from patrons about how we are doing.

Most impressive to me during my first year has been the significant breadth and generosity of the Library's support from students, alumni, and friends, as well as corporations and businesses. More than 5,000 donors each year contribute to Library programs. Wonderful examples of alumni (and soon to be alumni) giving include the last four graduating classes (1998, 1999, 2000, & 2001) that chose the Library for their senior class gifts, as well as recent alumni reunion class gifts from the Classes of 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1961, and the War Years. The Class of 1961 is especially notable, since 40 years ago, its senior class gift in June, 1961 was directed to the Morrison Room's Graphics Art Loan Collection.

I would like to bring your attention to a sampling of other special Library contributors and programs that merit acknowledgement:

• At a time of new concerns about the proper care of books and other paper media, Lisbet Rausing '84 (through the Fanny & Leo Koerner Charitable Trust) has established an endowment for The Library's Conservation Department. Named for her father, the Hans Rausing Conservatorship will begin with $3 million and serve preservation needs of collections across campus.
• Kenneth E. Hill '38, MS '40, and his wife, Dorothy were guests of UC President Richard Atkinson at Blake House, where Ken presented Dimity I. Mendeleyev's Principles of Chemistry (1868-71) to our University Library, the first publication of the periodic table of elements (and the 500 thousandth volume for the Bancroft Library and the 30 millionth volume in the UC libraries).
• 115 parents of graduating students (from B.A./B.S.'s through Ph.D.'s) made gifts to buy new books for the University Library in honor of their graduates in 2001--a tradition that continues each spring.
• Kimo Campbell, Council member of the Friends of the Bancroft Library, helped to find and then acquire two very valuable original Mark Twain manuscript letters for the Mark Twain Papers.
• The Library was an important part of the success of the University's recent capital campaign, as we exceeded our $25 million goal for acquisitions endowments. Thanks to the generosity of Jean Gray Hargrove '35, as well as many other donors, ground will be broken this school year on the new Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library.
• Wells Fargo Bank provided a grant of $100,000 to the Bancroft Library for the preparation and distribution of a set of audio tape lectures on California history, distributed to all libraries in the State, including high schools.
• Genentech Corporation contributed $500,000 to support a series of oral histories of the biotechnology industry in California through the Bancroft Library's Program in the History of the Biological Sciences & Biotechnology.
• Fund raising continues for the new East Asian Library and Studies Center that will be named in honor of former Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, and provide a permanent home for the country's preeminent collections for East Asian studies.

My thanks go to Chancellor Robert Berdahl for his support and to the full range of staff who have worked so hard. More than 700 students are employed in The Library, many in direct contact with the public. Any time you visit our service desks, you will have the agreeable impression that helping the library and staying young are one in the same. In the coming year I hope this is true for all of us, especially the generous friends of the Cal Library.

With best wishes,

Thomas C. Leonard
Professor & Kenneth and Dorothy Hill University Librarian