When I was a reader (grader) at UC Berkeley, the classes I read for were always English classes…read more They may have been cross-listed with other departments (history, disability studies, religious studies, ethnic studies, etc.); but I worked for the English Department, and these were English classes. Eventually, most of those classes (I read for one or two classes at a time between 2005 and 2013) were held in Wheeler Hall, which is the English Department's building, but especially early on, the classes were all over campus, from Northgate Hall to the Social Sciences Building (then named Barrows Hall) to Physics North (then named North Le Conte Hall) to McCone Hall.
Before I ever worked in McCone, I used to take what I thought was a shortcut through McCone to get to Northgate. It didn't end up saving me any time, but I'm really glad I did that while exploring campus early on, because I used to pass right through the security gates of the Earth Sciences & Map Library. Eventually, when my class was in McCone (the only time I ever read for a class in that building), I actually spent time in the library.
I wasn't an earth-science graduate student and wasn't even a UC Berkeley student. I'm sure as a university employee, I had some library borrowing privileges, but I never looked into them. And I rarely carried my employee ID with me, so there were some libraries on campus I couldn't even get into, let alone borrow from.
This library is perfect for studying and getting work done. I spent quite a bit of time here, both reading and grading, and I don't think I ever saw more than three other people at a time using the tables here.
There are pretty cool maps here, and once, there were a couple of grad students examining one at a table just as I was about to leave. I made a comment about the strangeness of the map, and they were very nice and explained what they were studying and why the woman needed to have a partial copy of the map made for a paper she was working on. All way above my comprehension in a subject I know nothing about, but fascinating nonetheless. And I love maps.
I normally conducted my office hours in Wheeler Hall, but they were constantly moving which room we could use while they remodeled rooms, so sometimes, we had very cramped, unappealing spaces. One semester, there were two wheelchair users in my class, so in addition to doing office hours in Wheeler, I also held them occasionally in an accessible cafe off campus and in the Earth Sciences & Map Library's group room. They were very kind about allowing me to make regular reservations without my employee ID and without even a berkeley.edu email address. (I technically had one, but I never set it up; I had all my students use my personal email address for all communications.)
It's a small library on the first floor of a tall building. It doesn't have the best atmosphere, but it's not awful either. It's quiet and very clean. I don't think there are bathrooms on the first floor, so if you do spend some time here, you'll probably be going upstairs occasionally. If you time it right and if you know where to look, you can catch the sunset directly behind the Golden Gate Bridge from a particular balcony on a particular floor. Don't you want to visit now?
You don't need any form of ID to entire the library, so it's technically open to the public, but I don't know what the policy on handling accessible materials is. It's all earth-science and topography specific, so I never looked at a book from the stacks, let alone took one out to read.
