It's a very new building on campus, named after a donor, I suppose. Libraries are welcome, of course. This one comes with a very modern style, a little out of character for this part of campus. Shocking to me.

I was a little shocked to find this modern building in a prominent spot on the campus. It is quite stark. Did not go inside.

We have specifically donated to this library, and our names appear in small letters among the recognized donors. So we are biased in favor of this library. We also lived in East Asia for close to four decades and appreciate the value of this library for keeping Berkeley a major American center of learning about Asia. The building itself is quite nice, and its interior layout quite nice, too.

The C.V. Starr East Asian Library houses more than 900,000 volumes of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean materials which include woodblock prints, rare maps and scrolls, and Buddhist scriptures. The new library which opened in 2008 consolidated the holdings of the Center for Chinese Studies Library and the East Asian Library nto one collection.

It contains one of the most comprehensive collections of materials in East Asian languages in the United States. It was designed by famous architects, combining east and west theme. The library has plenty of natural light. Books are on the open shelves. Plenty of quiet and studying areas with adequate light. Reference librarians readily to help to locate rare books. You enter the library from the third floor, there are elevators and stairway to go up to the fourth floor and down to the first floor.