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Millions of materials, one mission: University of California Libraries’ facilities chart unified course

August 13, 2025 Author: CDLCategories:
Tim Converse, operations manager of the Systemwide Library Facility-North, talks to visitors, including Mary MacDonald, while reshelving materials.
Tim Converse, operations manager of the Systemwide Library Facility-North, talks to visitors, including Mary MacDonald, while reshelving materials. (Photo by Jami Smith/UC Berkeley Library)

For decades, two understated yet indispensable storage complexes have quietly and reliably served the needs of library users across the University of California system and far beyond.

Now the facilities — one in the Bay Area and the other in Los Angeles — are entering a new era.

After more than 30 years under the management of UC Berkeley and UCLA, their individual host campuses, these once-regional library facilities are returning to systemwide oversight, with new names and unified leadership. This move will help ensure that the Systemwide Library Facilities, or SLFs — both SLF-North and SLF-South, as they are now called — can continue to preserve and provide unparalleled access to scholarly materials of unique and enduring value, even amid stretched campus budgets and rising costs.

Constructed in the 1980s and expanded in later years, the climate-controlled, high-density facilities have helped alleviate the space crunch on campuses by storing millions of materials held by UC’s libraries. The facilities preserve and ship these treasures — books, journals, maps, microfilm, manuscripts, vinyl records, and more — and transmit digital copies to libraries across the university system, as well as outside institutions, making knowledge available to students, scholars, and educators of all kinds.

The UC Office of the President built and originally managed the facilities, and in the 1990s transferred financial, strategic, and operational responsibilities to UC Berkeley and UCLA. Under the new structure, launched this year, the Office of the President will again take financial responsibility for the SLFs. The existing Systemwide Library Facilities Board — with representation from all campuses, the Office of the President, faculty, and librarians — will fulfill an expanded oversight role. UC Berkeley will serve as the administrative host of the SLFs, managing both SLF-North and SLF-South.

 

NOTE: This article was originally published on the UC Berkeley Library website. View the post here: https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/news/slf