Morrison Library opened in 1928 as a traditional library reading room providing an ambient atmosphere for students to take a break from the rigors of academic life. One of the architectural treasures of the UC Berkeley campus, Morrison Library offers comfortable seating for leisurely reading and maintains a circulating collection of newly published popular fiction and non-fiction. Morrison Library also has a limited collection of circulating audiobooks, travel books, and newly published poetry books, as well as subscriptions to several popular magazines and a few daily newspapers.

Events in the Morrison Library include Lunch Poems, a noontime poetry reading series under the direction of poet Robert Hass, and Story Hour in the Library, a monthly prose reading series hosted by English department faculty members Vikram Chandra and Melanie Abrams that features distinguished prose writers from the Bay Area and beyond.