The UC Berkeley Law Library houses an extensive print and electronic collection of U.S. congressional and administrative materials. Many of these documents were acquired by the Law Library through the Federal Depository Library Program, a program enacted into law by Congress (44 USC §1911) and administered by the Government Publishing Office. The Law Library became a selective federal depository library in 1963. It is one of over 1,000 depository libraries in the U. S., and one of several Federal Depository Libraries in the San Francisco Bay Area. The closest other depository library is the Doe Library on the Berkeley campus, and documents that we do not collect are usually available there. The California State Library in Sacramento is our Regional Depository and houses the most comprehensive collection of federal government materials in the state. The majority of depository documents that we receive are integrated into our general collection, they are fully cataloged and accessible through the Law Library Catalog, our online catalog.
The Library’s U.S. Government documents are accessible to all users, Monday through Friday, during public access hours. The Library is exclusively open to Berkeley Law students, faculty, and staff on weekends and during law school exam periods. Entry at these times requires a Cal1 Card. See Library Hours for complete information. Reference assistance is available, check our webpage for a complete schedule of reference hours.
The library currently selects approximately 13% of the items available to depository libraries. Documents are collected in print and electronic formats. Our collection concentrates first on primary legal materials including court decisions, codes, regulations, regulatory agency decisions, treaties and Congressional publications. In addition, we collect agency publications dealing with environmental issues, intellectual property, judicial administration, taxation, international trade, employment discrimination, immigration and human rights. We collect publications dealing with specific acts, such as ERISA and the ADA, that are of interest to all of our users. We rely on the Doe Library on the Berkeley campus and on our Regional Depository at the California State Library to select in areas not central to our mission.
It is our policy permanently to retain paper copies of core titles such as the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations in order to facilitate historical research. While we value maintaining physical copies to ensure comprehensive access, these sources are freely available online through U.S. government websites such as govinfo.gov and Congress.gov. Please note that our catalog may not list all available government documents.