Founded in 1954, the Collection is an integrated unit of the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Staff conducts researched oral history interviews with persons who are leading figures or well-placed witnesses to major events or trends in California and western U.S. history. Subjects of research include the history of medicine, science, and technology; agriculture, water resources and land use, the arts, business and labor, legal history, political history, social history, higher education, mining, medical history, and science and technology. Collections include bound, edited, and indexed volumes, which are also available on cassette tape. Oral histories can be purchased at cost or consulted at the Bancroft Library and other manuscript libraries. Selected oral histories are available in searchable format.

Oral histories relating to the biomedical sciences and public health include: program in the history of the biological sciences and biotechnology, including scientists and industrialists in the molecular sciences and biotechnology (ongoing); San Francisco AIDS Oral History Series: The Medical and Nursing Response, 1981-1984; Public Health and Research, including Jesse Bierman, Joel Fort, Dorothy Nyswander, Edwin H. Lennette, Bernice M. Hemphill, William C. Reeves, Harold N. Johnson, Warren Winkelstein and others; Health and Disease in Saudi Arabia: The Aramco Experience, 1940-1990, Vols. I-II; Health Maintenance Organizations (FHP: The Evolution of A Managed Care Health Maintenance Organization, 1955-1997, Vols. I-II); The History of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, 22 interviews (ongoing); Program in the History of Bioscience and Biotechnology, including Arthur Kornberg, William J. Rutter, Neil Reimers, and ongoing; American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, Recollections of Past and Present Leaders and of the Academy as institution.