Karl Niebyl was a professor of economics who escaped from Nazi Germany and taught for the rest of his life in various North American universities. His last post was at San Jose State.

Professor Niebyl died on April 4th, 1985, leaving his library to be made available to the public. He wanted this library to be named after his wife, Elizabeth Hale Niebyl, who was a leading figure in public housing in the days of the New Deal.

The Niebyl collection was stored for two years, until we found a home for it in Berkeley’s historic Finnish Hall. We moved in on January 20th, 1987 with 253 cartons of books.

Shortly, thereafter we inherited the books and papers of Roscoe Proctor, teacher, labor organizer, African-American activist. Hence the name: NIEBYL-PROCTOR LIBRARY.

In 1996 we moved into our own building at 6501 Telegraph Ave, in Oakland California.,

Our holdings consist of about 15,000 books, and over twenty thousand rare pamphlets, some dating back to the early 1920′s. The scope of the Karl Niebyl library reflects his wide interests: including world history, economics, philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, labor history, art and aesthetics.

The Proctor legacy dovetails nicely with that of Niebyl. The two collections overlap in basic areas such as economics and philosophy, but Proctor has left us with a unique collection of archival material relating to the history of radical politics, the labor and trade unions movements, and struggles for racial, national and sexual equality.

Our goal is to preserve our written heritage, as well as support emerging struggles for racial and gender equality, and for Socialism..

The NPML makes available its resources to organizations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.