The building is in the classic style of architecture and was designed by John Galen Howard. It is a steel frame, fireproof structure of the highest class, with outside dimensions of 262 feet by 224 feet. The exterior is of California granite with roof of red mission tile. The total cost including furnishing was $1,200,000.

It is rectangular in form, the covered central court, slightly over 100 feet square, being reserved for book storage, in two nine-story stacks of a combined capacity of one million volumes. At present only one of these stacks has been installed. The main entrance is from the north. To the left of the vestibule is the Bancroft Library, a collection under separate administration devoted to the history of California and the Southwest. To the right is the Reserved Book Room where are shelved those books designated by instructors as class references for the current semester. The remainder of the ground floor is given up to seminars 110 to 132.

The main stairway leads directly to the Delivery Hall where is the Loan Desk, with the entrance to the stack directly behind it. Opposite the Loan Desk, facing north, is the Reading Room, 210 feet long and 53 feet wide, with a seating capacity of five hundred and shelf room for about twenty thousand volumes. In it will be found all reference books except indexes, and in addition a fairly representative collection of general literature. At the east end of the Delivery Hall is the Reference Room through which access to the new Periodical Room is obtained. This latter, 135 feet long by 45 feet wide, extends down the east side of the main floor and provides seats for 240 readers and shelf room for the current magazines in most general use. The administration rooms occupy the corresponding position on the western side of this floor, the Associate Librarian’s Office and the Accessions Department, with a common entrance from the Delivery Hall, the Librarian’s Office and the Catalogue Room opening on the west corridor. Two rooms for the use of the library staff, three for instruction in library science, and one for binding preparation and for supplies extend across the south. The Union Card Catalogue will be found in the corridor leading to these.

On the third floor, reached by the western staircase and by the elevator, are the Library of French Thought (room 303), seminars 307 to 317, the map room (318), and a room (320) holding books not suitable for shelving in the regular stack. On the fourth floor are rooms 405 to 438, the majority used as private studies for members of the faculty, but a few of them combination seminar rooms and offices.

There are also basements on the south and west sides, the former used by the University Press as a storage room, the latter, furnished with a freight entrance and a staff elevator, being the library receiving and unpacking room. From the rear of the building between these is a public entrance. This by means of a corridor and stairway, enables readers from the south to reach the ground floor.