Effort under way to find home for water archive

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UC ANR may extend another request for proposals to find a new home for the Water Resource Center Archives, now housed at UC Berkeley, according to an article this week in the Contra Costa Times.

ANR announced last October plans to move the archive in order to achieve budget savings.

"We don't believe we have the expertise to continue to manage a library," ANR associate vice president Barbara Allen-Diaz told reporter Mike Taugher. "I believe in these kinds of archives. I will do my best to find it a home."

The Times story gave examples of archives in the collection:

Promotional materials for the "Reber Plan" to build a dam across the Golden Gate
Old speeches about the peripheral canal
Original photographs of the construction of the Los Angeles aqueduct
Photos of the aftermath of the deadly 1928 collapse of St. Francis Dam near Los Angeles

In all, the archive contains more than 200,000 technical reports, 1,500 specialized newsletters, 5,000 maps and videos, 200 manuscript collections, 25,000 black-and-white photographs and 45,000 coastal aerial photographs.

"We specialize in collecting information nobody else has," the article quoted archive director Linda Vida. "These are the kinds of things you can't find at a regular library."

The archive is used by academics, authors, consultants, engineers, government officials, lawyers, students and water districts.

UPDATE, May 25, 2010: The San Francisco Chronicle ran an editorial today about ANR efforts to move the Water Resources Center Archives. The editorial was written by Daniel Holmes, a consulting geographer and librarian. Holmes has posted an open letter on the Web encouraging people to write to UC leaders about the water archive.

A LA aquaduct construction photo from the archive.