May Dornin, a native San Franciscan, attended UCB, receiving a master’s degree in history in 1922 for her thesis The Emigrant Trails into California. After joining the library staff, mainly in the Catalog Department, she worked with the first Librarian in 1875 and first University Archivist, Joseph Cummings Rowell. Rowell retired as Librarian in 1919, but continued on as University Archivist until 1938. May Dornin oversaw the collection and was finally appointed University Archivist herself in 1946, a position she held until 1964. She was interviewed by the Oral History Office in 1976, and she participated in two other oral history interviews, one on the Robert Gordon Sproul years as President of the University, and one on the history of the Women’s Faculty Club, where she resided for many years. After her retirement, she joined the staff of the Centennial Publications Office, formed to mark the centennial of the university in 1968. She coauthored, with Albert Pickerell, The University of California: a pictorial history, and contributed many articles on Berkeley to The Centennial Record of the University of California, both published by the university in 1968.