UC Berkeley | Institute of Governmental Studies Library

Collections

The collection contains over 400,000 catalogued items and 1200 active serial titles. There are three broad subject areas:

Institutions. There is strong coverage of Congress and the presidency, the California state legislature and governorship, and California local government. Also well covered are concepts and problems of federalism and intergovernmental relations, as well as state and local government generally.
The political process and policymaking. There is broad coverage of political parties, elections and practical politics, the legislative process, legislative-executive relations, the initiative and referendum, and public administration.
Public policy issues. A diverse array of public policy issues is represented in the collection, and more are added all the time as new issues enter the political process and gain the attention of policymakers. Some general public policy strengths are public finance and taxation, educational and health care reform, contracting out and deregulation, environmental protection, and city and regional planning. The overall focus is domestic policy, with a geographical emphasis on California.

Special Collections and Archives

The following special collections are especially worthy of mention:

Election Ephemera

For many years the Library has collected campaign literature and clipped newspaper articles on election campaigns at the state and regional levels. The collection is especially rich in election ephemera on controversial statewide ballot propositions, such as Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax initiative. Material on each race is cataloged as a collection, and the catalog records are searchable by the names of the candidates and ballot propositions.

Reapportionment Archives

The Library houses the files of the special masters appointed by the California Supreme Court to reapportion state legislative and congressional districts following the 1970 and 1990 censuses.

Finding aids describe the two archives in detail:

Inventory of the Collection of the California Special Masters on Reapportionment, 1973
Inventory of the Collection of the California Special Masters on Reapportionment, 1991

Berman/D'Agostino Redistricting and Political Campaign Materials, 1968-2000

The collection consists of redistricting maps, campaign literature and related political materials documenting the careers of Michael Berman and Carl D'Agostino, leading California political consultants and strategists, and the work of their consulting firm, Berman and D'Agostino Campaigns. A finding aid describes the collection in detail.

Index to Current Urban Documents

This special collection, an online database as of 2001 and a microfiche collection from 1972-2000, is the key national resource for local government publications of the United States and Canada. Cities and counties in the major metropolitan areas of North America are represented. The IGS library holds the microfiche collection from 1983/84 to 1999/00.

California Local Documents Collection

The Library has an extensive collection of budgets and financial reports, planning documents, and ordinance codes from cities and counties across California. Under state law the Library is a depository for these publications. A list of California Local Codes held by the Library is available.

California Local Planning Documents Database

This is a specialized online file of titles in the Library's extensive collection of California city and county plans. The database has three search keys: jurisdiction or place name, element (i.e., housing, open space), and year adopted.

Overacker-Heard Campaign Finance Data Archive

The Overacker-Heard collection consists of boxes of index cards containing names of individual contributors to presidential campaigns and party committees from 1904 to 1954. The cards formed the data bases for Louise Overacker's Money in Elections (1932), her accounts of financing the 1936, 1940 and 1944 presidential elections and Alexander Heard's The Costs of Democracy (1960). A finding aid describes the collection in detail.

Presidio Trust Environmental Remediation Collection

This is a collection of environmental reports and studies on the conversion of the Presidio of San Francisco to a national park as part of the Golden Gate national Recreation Area. A Finding Aid describes the collection in detail

Federal Election Commission Microfilm Collection

The collection contains, in a series of microfilm sequences, campaign finance disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from 1972 through 2004, and FEC actions involving enforcement of federal campaign finance laws from 1975 onward.

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Using the On-Site Collection

While some reference materials and bound volumes of high-use journals are on open shelves in the Reading Room, the bulk of the collection is in closed stacks and must be paged. To have material paged, fill out call slips and take them to the Information Desk. Paging, which is normally very prompt, is available 11 am - 5 pm.

The collection is non-circulating. Some form of identification is held at the Information Desk while material is being used. Patrons needing requested material over several days may have it held at the Information Desk for up to a week. A photocopy machine is available that accepts one dollar bills, coins and campus copy cards.

Library Code of Conduct

The Library Code of Conduct details standards for Library use intended to create a safe and pleasant research environment for all Library patrons.

Electronic Resources

Four public workstations in the Reading Room provide Internet and CD-ROM access to a range of electronic resources.

The California Digital Library includes, in addition to the nine-campus online Melvyl catalog, an increasing number of specialized databases that provide access to journal articles, in many cases full text. Library staff can provide assistance in the use of these specialized databases.

The Berkeley campus library system provides access to still more online resources, including ProQuest, a newspaper/journal article database, and Lexis-Nexis Academic, providing full-text access to hundreds of newspapers and other resources.

The Library tracks key Internet resources on American and California politics and public policy in its Internet Resources Gallery.