Bancroft Pictorial Collection Stabilization Project

FAIN: PZ-50113-07

University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)
Charles Bailey Faulhaber (Project Director: October 2006 to November 2011)

The purchase and installation of a climate control system, storage furniture, and cold and sub-zero storage for photograph collections and related materials on the American West.

This proposal requests support for THE BANCROFT PICTORIAL COLLECTION STABILIZATION PROJECT. Part of The Bancroft Library, among the most heavily used special collections in America, the Pictorial Collection is one of the richest repositories of pictorial Western Americana in the world. The Collection is housed in the Doe Annex on the UC Berkeley campus. Constructed in 1950 as generic library space, the building was never designed to meet the preservation and access needs of special collections. Aside from the Reading Room, Doe Annex has no climate control. Storage capacity is inadequate, so that over half of the Collection's materials have been stored at a remote facility. The Project, which includes renovation activities exclusively, has five elements: 1) an HVAC system devoted to Pictorial Collection; 2) Cold storage and sub-zero storage units; 3) Flat-file equipment for the storage of oversized works on paper; 4) Art rack equipment; and 5) Staffing to rehouse film-based media.