Online Catalog
https://www.librarycat.org/lib/ucbfrench
The current collection is over 9,000 volumes, approximately 150 journal titles, magazines, maps, slides, and other ephemera. Our vast literature holdings cover the entire history of French writing from the earliest chansons to francophonie and the bande dessinée. Subjects such as history, linguistics, criticism, theater, film, and philosophy are also well represented. New items are being added to the collection on a periodic basis.
Thanks to a generous donation by Steve Snow in honor of Priscilla D.”Petie” Snow, we were able to create a leisure reading section in the library featuring a wide selection of materials ranging from general interest in French language and culture, to children’s literature, to art and travel books.
Location
4229 Dwinelle Hall
Librarian of French Thought
(Spring 2025)
Rachel O'Shea
frenchlibrary@berkeley.edu
Spring 2025 Regular Hours
M: closed (available by appointment)
T: 2-5:30
W: 10-2
R: 2-5
F: 10-1; 2:30-4
This schedule is subject to change. When needed, modified hours will be posted on the door.
Visitors are welcome to use the room to study, read for class or fun, work on group projects, and play our board games; with moderate amounts of talk permissible. Special events must reserve the library in advance.
Students are welcome to use the coffeemaker located in the reading room. Students may bring drinks in closed containers; however food is not allowed at this time. Drinks are not permitted in the stacks.
Borrowing Policies
All students enrolled in a French course --including those taught in English-- may check out any circulating item (books in the stacks, general reading books & magazines). Non-circulating items include reference materials, rare books, journals, and the Pléiade collection. Course Textbooks and Course Reserves can only be checked out for two hours at a time.
Students enrolled in French 1, French 2, French R&C, French 43A, & French 80, can only access the stacks by proxy. I.e. Students should look up the item in the catalog and ask the librarian to fetch it for them.
Students enrolled in French 3-4, 13-14, 35, C26 and above, in addition to French majors and minors, may physically browse the stacks.
Graduate students in French, Comparative Literature, and RLL (from all participating RLL departments) also have full borrowing privileges; graduate students in other departments should contact the librarian at the address above if they wish to borrow material from the French library.
Please use this form to check out library materials
You must fill out the form for each item you wish to check out.
Please email the librarian if you wish to renew a borrowed item. Do *NOT* fill out the check out form a second time.
Accessibility
Some of the rows in the stacks are not wheelchair accessible and have limited lighting. Students who need assistance should check the catalog for their items, which the librarian can then fetch for them. The following link details additional services that the library provides to patrons with disabilities: https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/help/disability-resources.
OTHER HELP outside of the Library of French Thought
Students who need reference help, day or night, can always Ask a question 24/7. This live chat service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
To consult the UCB Librarian for French Studies during regular hours, please contact:
Claude Potts
Librarian for Romance Language Collections
438 Doe Library
510-643-8966
cpotts@berkeley.edu
French Studies research guide: guides.lib.berkeley.edu/subject-guide/french-studies
Blog: ucblib.link/romance-collections-blog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucb_romance_collections/
History
The Library of French Thought is intertwined with the history of both France and the Bay Area. After the Battle of Marne during World War I, the French Government worried that the jewels of French thought might be crushed under the wheels of the advancing war machine. In order to safeguard their intellectual treasure, the government sent 2,500 volumes, “The solid qualities and enlivening graces of French scholarship,”* to San Francisco, the site of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Out of harm’s way, the books were displayed in the Salle de la Pensée française in the French Pavilion. Unfortunately, the end of the exposition did not coincide with the end of the war and it was still not safe for the books to return to France. At that time a California group called “The Friends of France” was sending volunteers to drive ambulances and serve as medics on the Western Front. The French Government contacted them and together they decided that by endowing the books to UC Berkeley, they would help to facilitate friendship and understanding between the two countries. Indeed, the President of the Friends of France, Mr. W.B. Bourn, stated that when the youth of California come to know the books they would learn three things from the French: “How to fight, how to love, and how to die.”** The library was inaugurated on September 6, 1917 (Lafayette Day) in a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by Bay Area and French dignitaries.
*”The Dedication of The Library of French Thought: Exercises Conducted by the Friends of France at the University of California on September 6 (Lafayette Day), 1917″ (Berkeley: University of California, 1918)(PDF file)(link is external), 9.
**”The Dedication of The Library of French Thought,” 11.