The Systemwide Library Facility - North (SLF-North) at UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station is one of two library facilities that provide books, journals, maps, and other material storage and access services for the 10 University of California campus libraries.
The 98,000 square foot main building was completed in 1982; an 84,000 square foot stack annex was completed in 1990; and a 67,000 square foot storage module, as well as a new reading room, were added in 2005. The SLF-North offers high density, low-cost housing for infrequently used library materials. As of June 2018, the SLF-North held over 7.2 million items (mostly books and journal volumes, but also microfilm, maps, audio discs, manuscripts, archives, and other formats normally collected by research libraries).
Both of the Systemwide Library Facilities are reaching capacity and expansion of the northern facility has been deemed necessary. The fourth phase expansion to the SLF-North responds to the need for storage for new and archival library collections as well as changing space needs in UC campus libraries. SLF-North, Phase 4, provides 10 years of needed new storage capacity for low-use library materials of research value in the most cost-effective, economical manner for the libraries of the UC.
Construction began in spring 2019 and completed in November 2020.