The UC Libraries have coalesced around a range of core library initiatives, including scholarly communication, shared library services and infrastructure, and digital curation and preservation.
Scholarly Communication
UC Libraries Scholarly Communication
The University of California Libraries are committed to working collaboratively with a variety of partners and stakeholders to provide leadership in transforming scholarly communication into a system that is economically sustainable and ensures the widest possible access to the scholarly record.
Office of Scholarly Communication 
The University of California’s Office of Scholarly Communication focuses on monitoring and synthesizing significant developments in scholarly communication with particular emphasis on implications for the UC academic community. Office membership includes representatives from the Libraries, UC Press, the Academic Senate University Committee on Libraries and Scholarly Communications (UCOLASC), and the UC Office of the President.
Shared Library Services
Shared Collections
Maintaining the breadth and depth of UC’s collections and services in the face of continuing increases in the volume and cost of scholarly publication is the single greatest challenge confronting UC’s libraries today. To meet this challenge, the UC libraries have collaborated closely and pooled their resources to ensure that all UC faculty, students and staff, irrespective of their location, have access to library collections that meet the high research and teaching standards of an eminent research university.
Read the UC Libraries’ Collection Development Committee’s report, The University of California Library Collection: Content for the 21st Century and Beyond (March, 2009) [PDF].
Shared Print
In addition to shared digital collections, the UC libraries’ shared print collection further optimizes the management of and access to information resources for students and faculty. It reduces unnecessary duplication, leverages shared assets, and expands the breadth and depth of information resources available systemwide.
Learn more about the UC Shared Print Current Initiatives.
Shared Discovery
The Systemwide ILS (SILS) is a centralized library management and discovery system – powered by Ex Libris’ Alma / Primo VE software – that unites the collections and digital resources for the entire UC system. The SILS brings together all ten UC campus libraries, the California Digital Library, and two regional storage facilities into one system. The UC Libraries benefit through newly streamlined workflows and greater collaboration between campuses in collections management.
Learn more about the Systemwide ILS (SILS).
Regional Library Facilities
The UC libraries cooperatively manage two temperature- and humidity-controlled Regional Library Facilities (RLFs). The Northern Regional Library Facility (NRLF) is located on the grounds of the UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station, and the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF) is located on the UCLA campus. The RLFs optimize the system’s capacity to collect, preserve, and provide access to UC’s unique and valued collections, enabling campus libraries to utilize limited campus space to better serve emerging uses and user needs. In addition to providing systemwide leadership for storage and access services, the RLFs are key resources for UC, regional, and national shared print and print preservation programs, and they’ve contributed greatly to UC mass digitization efforts.
Learn more about the RLFs and new initiatives, like NRLF 4, from the Shared Library Facilities Board.
Digital Curation and Preservation
The UC libraries are working in collaboration with national and international efforts to develop a digital preservation infrastructure that adheres to established standards and open-source practices for born-digital materials and research data. The infrastructure may also assist in the preservation or protection of deteriorating print materials and help meet the University’s diverse needs for reliable archiving, management, and retrieval of essential digital information of all kinds.
Learn more about the services and tools offered by the University of California Curation Center (UC3) .