UNIVERSITY" ARCHIVES ^ WfyUs University of California Berkeley UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY PRESS BERKELEY 1915 DONOR OF THE BUILDING CHARLES FRANKLIN DOE, whose gift of three- quarters of a million dollars rendered the con- struction of the new library building for the University of California a possibility, was born at Parsonsfield, Maine, August 13, 1833. He was descended from a typical New England family, the youngest of a family of twelve, and of deli- cate constitution from his childhood. Ill-health prevented his success as a teacher in his home town, and as a carpenter and builder in Boston. It was therefore a blessing to him that in 1857 he could join his brothers Bartlett and John Doe, who had gone to California in 1850. Here he found a congenial climate and recovered his health sufficiently to attain the front rank among the business men of San Francisco. He first allied himself with his brothers in a sash, door, and blind manufactory, afterwards forming a partnership with James Knowland in the .retail lumber business. In these ventures and through careful investments in city real estate he built up a fortune of several million dollars. There was nothing spectacular about his suc- cess. He conserved his health, doing always "a quiet, honest business/ 7 Mr. Doe was regular in his habits, shy and retiring and had few intimate friends. In this he was strongly in contrast with his brother Bartlett, who was a man of very positive qualities. This shyness was especially marked in the presence of women, which ex- plains the fact that he remained a bachelor throughout his life. Yet he was an ardent lover of children and deeply interested in their welfare, [21 as the list of his benefactions testifies. A Uni- versalist in religion, he was indiscriminate in his gifts to institutions for the protection and care of children those of all creeds sharing equally. The gift of twenty-four per cent of his prop- erty to the University of California for a library building was the result of an idea that had de- veloped during the last years of his life. In this plan he was advised and guided by his friend, H. B. Phillips. He often said that five hundred thousand dollars was enough for any one man, the remainder belonging to the state. Holding these views, his gift to the University would have been more generous had it not been for a state law restricting the percentage of his fortune a man might bequeath to institutions. At any rate the amount donated has sufficed to erect a monument to his name, not only lovely from an esthetic viewpoint, but also a center of spiritual activity of unceasing beneficence. It is no source of wonder that one to whom books were the chief happiness and relaxation should have seized upon the opportunity to create a great library and valued that fact as the crowning event of his life. His death occurred in 1904. DESCRIPTION OF THE BUILDING Doe bequest, 1904. Cornerstone laid, Thanksgiving Day, 1908. Library opened in June, 1911. Architecture: Classic, a mingling of Corinthian and Ionic, with red tiled roof. Framework : Steel incased in concrete. The whole building is fireproof. Doors, sashes and stacks of metal. The main doors are of massive bronze. [3] Dimensions: Width, east and west front, 226 feet; height, 60 feet. Length, north and south, 263 feet. Plan : Square court, used as stack-room, surrounded by various reading rooms, seminar rooms, de- livery hall, etc. Materials: The exterior is of California granite, the main vestibule and staircase of white Italian marble. The delivery hall is paneled in arches of caen stone, buff-tinted. The read- ing-room is finished in similar manner, but with rectangular paneling, the vaulted ceiling being ornamented with panels containing cen- ters of conventionalized blossoms in high relief. The walls of the other rooms are fin- ished in neutral tinted plaster, and all floors are covered with battleship linoleum. Lighting: The reading-room and delivery hall are lighted during the day by large windows and skylights, and at night by ceiling lights. In addition, the reading-room tables are provided with electric lamps, bronze standards with two lights each. Ordinary electroliers and desk lamps are used in the other rooms. Delivery Hall: 28x134 feet; opens into reading- room and stack; contains a massive marble and bronze loan desk. The delivery hall is the center of activities and houses the catalogues of the library proper (west end), and the bibliographical catalogues formed from the cards of the Library of Congress and other institutions (east end). At the east end are also cases containing athletic trophies and col- lections of rare coins, etc. 'Reading -room: 53 feet wide and 210 long, 40 feet in height; lighted by skylights and great win- dows on the north, east, and west sides; con- tains thirty-five reading tables, capable of ac- commodating over five hundred readers. Around the walls are steel cases in which are shelved a reference collection of about 15,000 volumes, special reading cases being provided in the [41 center of the room for general reference books and atlases. A reference desk of carved and paneled oak is at the entrance to the room facing the loan desk. tack: 104 feet long by 43 feet wide, and five decks each IVz feet in height; the shelving is of pressed steel, capable of accommodat- ing about 375,000 volumes. The stack is lighted from the rear by windows looking out on an open court. A wide aisle permits the placing of small tables for the use of profes- sors and research workers who have stack privileges. An electric elevator, automatic book-lift and telephone system contribute to rapid service. Provision for the addition of four stories to the present stack and for further extension into the court as need re- quires is made in the plans. Administrative Offices: Librarian's office (13x14 feet) ; associate librarian ? s office (15 x 21 feet); catalogue department (30x30 feet); accessions department (two rooms, each 15 x 30 feet). An electric freight elevator connects the accessions department with the basement and with the ground floor. Periodical Boom: 88 x 61 feet, on the ground floor at the right of the entrance. Lighted by north and west windows. Contains a two-story stack for bound periodicals and wall cases for cur- rent numbers. Capacity of shelves about 50,000 volumes. Seating capacity, 120. Bancroft Library: Opposite the periodical room and of the same dimensions is the room in which the Bancroft collection of Pacific coast literature is installed. This room also con- tains a two-story stack capable of accommo- dating about 50,000 volumes. The office of the curator connects with the Bancroft library. This contains filing cabinets and steel cases for manuscripts and the more valuable bound volumes. Seminar rooms and special libraries : On the ground floor, a corridor runs around three sides of the quadrangle of the Library, upon which open [5] the rooms devoted to special collections and seminar rooms for the different departments of instruction. There are thirty-five of these rooms, varying in size from 15x15 feet to 30x30 feet. Certain of these not used for seminar rooms are used for special purposes, e.g., University archives (1-2), University Press (4), staff room, men (14), staff room, women (24-26), maps and charts (28), library school (30-33). Two cloak-rooms are also pro- vided at the sides of the main staircase. Architect: John Galen Howard, the architect of the Doe Library, has been Professor of Archi- tecture and supervising architect of the Uni- versity of California since 1901. Under his direction the permanent plans for the build- ings of the University as proposed by Monsieur Benard, the winner of the first prize in the Hearst competition, are being developed. The fact that Mr. Howard was the winner of the fourth prize in the competition renders his appointment as the University architect par- ticularly appropriate. Mr. Howard studied under H. H. Eichardson, McKim, Mead, and White, ^and at the ticole des Beaux Arts, and has designed many important buildings in the United States. Furniture, chairs, desks, lamps, etc.: Designed in the main by J. H. P. Atkins, of the firm of Vickery, Atkins and Torrey, San Francisco. Catalogue cases and wooden furniture mainly supplied by a San Francisco firm, A. J. Forbes and Sons. Heating and Ventilation: The Library is supplied with heat from the central power plant, and the main rooms are supplied with air thor- oughly purified by an air-washing plant in- stalled in the basement. Catalogues and Classification : The Library is class- ified according to a system devised by Mr. J. C. Rowell, the Librarian. Certain classes (history, political and social sciences), how- ever, are now being reclassified according to [6] the system in use at the Library of Congress. A new catalogue on the dictionary principle is also being developed. About 20,000 volumes have been reclassified and 70,000 cards filed in the new catalogue. In addition to the cata- logues of the library proper there is a biblio- graphic catalogue of the catalogue cards of all American libraries at present printing cards. This numbers approximately 1,000,000 cards. The Library of Congress cards, of course, form the bulk of this collection, although about 200,000 cards have been supplied by the printed cards of Harvard University Library, John Crerar Library, University of Chicago Library, and the Royal Library at Berlin. General Statistics: Number of volumes in the Library: about 300,000 Number of yearly accessions (average) 20,000 Number of serials currently received.. 6,000 Number of volumes in Beading-room: about 15,000 Number of volumes in Bancroft Library: about 60,000 Number of manuscripts in Bancroft Library: about 100,000 Use of library (statistics for 1914) : Day use 144,248 Home use 67,514 Overnight use 6,058 Total 217,820 Library staff: Librarian, associate librarian, 5 department heads, 14 senior assistants, 12 junior assistants, 7 attendants, etc.; total 40, exclusive of student service. [7]