UC Berkeley gets new music library

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 2, 2004 | by STAFF WRITER

BERKELEY -- A new state-of-the-art, $14 million music library on the University of California, Berkeley campus has opened for business.

The Jean Hargrove Music Library has more space, the latest technology, heightened security and room for growth, university officials say.

Located on the southeastern side of campus, the library houses 190,000 volumes of printed music, books and periodicals, as well as more than 50,000 sound and video recordings, extensive collections of manuscripts and other rare materials, according to university officials.

With more than 28,000 square feet of space between three floors, the new library is twice the size of the old one on the second floor of Morrison Hall. That library, which opened in 1958, will be renovated for faculty offices and additional teaching and rehearsal space.

The new library contains such rare finds as the only known score of Alessandro Scarlatti's 1683 opera, "L'Aldimiro," the papers of jazz great Earl "Fatha" Hines, and an original, handwritten manuscript of Stravinsky's ballet "Orpheus."

The new library is named after Jean Gray Hargrove, a Berkeley woman who graduated from Cal in 1935 and whose $4 million donation made its construction possible. Her portrait will hang in the reference room.

A grand opening celebration is planned for Sept. 26.