The Berkeley Natural History Museums and MVZ administrative office is normally open Monday through Friday, between the hours of 8 am – 12 pm and 1 pm – 5 pm.
Public Access
The Museum is primarily a research facility with no public access to the museum and its collections. There are no regular tours or exhibits within the Museum. Limited public displays are located directly outside the Museum and in the adjoining hallways of the Valley Life Sciences Building.
We are open to the public with special displays during Cal Day (the annual campus open house), and provide special tours during other events such as Homecoming Weekend.
Research Access
Access and use of the collections are granted to scientists, graduate students, and other users and visitors with a scientific interest in the collections. Access to the collections is only by appointment and during administrative hours. Special arrangements may be made with individual curators at their discretion for use of the collections during evenings and weekends. Requests to visit the collections should be made to the appropriate staff curator.
Student Access
Access to the collections for graduate students is by appointment only, please contact the appropriate curator.
For undergraduates, there are several classes on campus that either give short tours of the Museum, or use some of the collections for teaching. For more information, see Classes and Undergraduate Opportunities.
Tours
Professors and graduate students on campus can request a tour for their UC Berkeley class. In addition, we will arrange tours for other educational purposes (e.g., K-12 or other colleges) or for special groups (e.g., professional societies or other).
We require notice at the beginning of the semester for any class tour. We will not consider tour requests with less than a month’s advance notice.
Groups over 15 people will need to be split up into smaller sections for the tour and will require multiple tour guides.
Staff curators are in charge of pulling and reinstalling specimens, and we have limited staff resources, so please consider that when requesting a tour.