Editing Widener Library (section)

{{Short description|Primary building of Harvard Library}}
{{good article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox library
| library_name       = Harry Elkins Widener<br />Memorial Library
| library_logo       =
| image              = WidenerLibrary HarvardUniversity Springtime.jpg
| image_upright      = 1.3
| caption            = "You could destroy all the other Harvard buildings and, with Widener left standing, still have a university." {{nobr|{{mdash}}{{thinsp}}[[G.&nbsp;L. Kittredge]]{{r|buck}}}}
| type               = [[Academic library|Academic]]
| scope              =
| established        = 1915
| location           = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
| coordinates        =  {{nobr|{{coord|42|22|24.4|N|71|06|59.4|W|display=inline,title}}}}
| branch_of          = [[Harvard Library]]
| items_collected    = Primarily humanities and {{nobr|social{{nbsp}}sciences}}
| collection_size    = {{plainlist|
* {{nobr|3.5 million (onsite)}}
* {{nobr|3 million (offsite)}}
}}
| criteria           =
| req_to_access      = {{nobr|Harvard faculty, students{{nbsp}}& staff}}
| annual_circulation = 600,000 items/year<!--1997 figure-->
| country            = U.S.
| pop_served         =
| budget             =
| director           =
| num_employees      =
| website            = [https://library.harvard.edu/libraries/widener Widener Library]
| references         =
}}
The '''Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library''', housing some 3.5{{nbsp}}million books,{{r|counting}} is the centerpiece of the [[Harvard Library]] system. It honors 1907 [[Harvard College]] graduate and [[book collector]] [[Harry Elkins Widener]], and was built by his mother [[Eleanor Elkins Widener]] soon after his death in the [[sinking of the Titanic|sinking of the ''Titanic'']] in 1912.

Widener's "vast and cavernous"{{hsp}}{{r|sheavian}} [[bookstack|stacks]] hold works in more than one hundred languages which together comprise "one of the world's most comprehen{{shy}}sive research collec{{shy}}tions in the [[humanities]] and [[List of social sciences|social sciences]]."{{hsp}}{{r|collections}} Its {{convert|57|mi|km}} of shelves, along five miles (8{{nbsp}}km) of aisles on ten levels, comprise a "[[labyrinth]]" which one student "could not enter without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle."{{hsp}}{{r|tuchman}}

At the building's heart are the '''Widener Memorial Rooms''', displaying papers and mementos recalling the life and death of Harry Widener, as well as the '''Harry Elkins Widener Collec{{shy}}tion''',{{r|hewc}}
"the precious group of rare and wonder{{shy}}fully interesting books brought together by Mr. Widener",{{r|snead}}
to which was later added one of the few perfect [[Gutenberg Bible#Surviving copies|Gutenberg Bibles]]{{mdashb}}the object of a 1969 burglary attempt conjectured by Harvard's police chief to have been inspired by the 1964 [[heist film]]{{hsp}}''[[Topkapi (film)|Topkapi]]''.