About the Library

The University of California, Berkeley Law Library is the heartbeat of intellectual activity in the Law School, where students and faculty come together to share in the use of the Library’s collections and services and engage in legal research and scholarship. Since 1894 it has evolved from a modest collection of several hundred books housed in a few dusty alcoves in a basement on campus, to its current status as a world-class center for legal scholarship and research with close to 875,000 volumes and volume equivalents. The Law Library’s collection is rich in legal history and common law material and through the Robbins endowment has one of the finest collections of comparative law, international and human rights law and civil law in the world. The Law Library is also home to the world-renowned Robbins Collection in Civil and Religious Law. Students, faculty and scholars from all over the world come to the Law Library and Robbins Collection to conduct research and engage in legal scholarship.