Public Health Library merges with Bioscience & Natural Resources Library

Bioscience Library
The collections of the Public Health Library will be moved to the Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library in the Valley Life Sciences Building, shown above. (Photo by J. Pierre Carrillo for the UC Berkeley Library)

On June 4, two important libraries in the Life & Health Sciences Division will come together under one roof as the Marian Koshland Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library.

Library staff and collections from the Public Health Library will be integrated into the Bioscience & Natural Resources Library, in the Valley Life Sciences Building. The Sheldon Margen Public Health Library — located in 1 University Hall, at Oxford Street and University Avenue — will close June 1.

Course reserves for the School of Public Health are already being moved to the Valley Life Sciences Building location and will be available to students for the summer semester.

To reach this decision, the Library issued a call for comment in September and received feedback from several departments and key campus stakeholders. The reconfiguration comes after months of collaboration between librarians and deans from the School of Public Health, the College of Natural Resources, and the Division of Biological Sciences.

The library will continue to memorialize Sheldon Margen’s contributions to the School of Public Health, the university, and the field, University Librarian Jeff MacKie-Mason stated in an announcement last year.

The Public Health Library and Bioscience & Natural Resources Library collections support interdisciplinary subject areas, including health, nutrition, toxicology, and disease. Together, the resources and expertise of the two libraries will join to better serve multidisciplinary research and learning.