Thanks to a $750,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a $5-million gift from an anonymous donor, the University of California at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library is now more than halfway to getting the funds needed for a $20-million renovation of the 50-year-old facility. Bancroft Director Charles Faulhaber said that the NEH grant, announced December 10, brings the total revenue pledged to $12.5 million.
UCB officials formally launched a campaign December 17 to raise the remaining funds for the makeover, which is scheduled to take place between June 2005 and December 2006. The Bancroft Library, which contains some of the most heavily used special collections in the United States, now occupies a cramped space in an annex of the main library. The renovation will add more space for exhibits, classrooms, the reading room, and storage space. It will also include wheelchair ramps, more accessible stairs and elevators, more computers, and state-of-the-art climate control.
At the same time, the building will undergo a $17-million seismic retrofit, financed by California’s Proposition 47 and approved by voters in 2002.
Posted December 19, 2003.