Editing Widener Library (section)

==Building==

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary ExteriorFront c1915 cropped.jpg|left|thumb|upright= 1.0
|link=File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary ExteriorFront c1915.jpg|View from [[University Hall (Harvard)|University Hall]] ]]

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary SecondFloorPlan SneadIronWorks cropped.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.1|link=File:HarvardUniversity_WidenerLibrary_SecondFloorPlan_SneadIronWorks.jpg|Second floor plan (north at bottom)
]]

At Harvard's "geographical and intellec{{shy}}tual heart"{{hsp}}{{r|forrest}}
directly across [[Tercentenary Theatre (Harvard University)|Tercenten{{shy}}ary Theatre]] from [[Memorial Church of Harvard University|Memorial Church]],{{r|bpl_sargent}}
Widener Library is a hollow rectangle of "[[Harvard brick]] with Indiana limestone [[traceries]]",{{r|stone}}
250 by 200 by 80{{nbsp}}feet high (76 by 61 by 24{{nbsp}}m){{r|shandtucci|p=167}}
and enclosing 320,000 square feet (30,000{{nbsp}}m{{sup|2}}){{r|forrest}},
"colon{{shy}}naded on its front by immense pillars with elaborate [[Capital (architecture)#corinthian capital|[Corinthian capitals]]],{{r|AZ|p=362}} all of which stand at the head of a flight of stairs that would not disgrace the [[United States Capitol|capitol in Washing{{shy}}ton]]."{{hsp}}{{r|shandtucci}}
Sources describe the building's style as (variously)
[[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux-Arts]],{{r|canoe|p=88}}
[[Georgian architecture|Georgian]],{{r|lacock|p=57}}{{r|british|p=457}} [[Hellenistic architecture|Hellenistic]],{{r|whiffen|p=281}}
or "the austere, formalistic [[Empire style|Imperial]] [or 'Imperial and Classical'] style displayed in the Law School's [[Langdell Hall]] and the [[Harvard Medical School#Quadrangle|Medical School Quadrangle]]".{{r|AZ|p=361}}

The east, south, and west wings house the [[stacks (library architecture)|stacks]], while the north contains administrative offices and various reading rooms, including the Main Reading Room (now the Loker Reading Room){{mdashb}}which, spanning the entire front of the building and some 42{{nbsp}}feet (13{{nbsp}}m) in both depth and height, was termed by architec{{shy}}tur{{shy}}al historian [[Bainbridge Bunting]] "the most ostenta{{shy}}tious interior space at Harvard."{{hsp}}{{r|bunting|p=154}}
A topmost floor, supported by the stacks framework itself, contains thirty-two rooms for special collections, studies, offices, and seminars.{{r|lane_libj|p=327-8}}

The Memorial Rooms (see [[#memorial rooms|§ Widener Memorial Rooms]]) are in the building's center, between what were originally two light courts (28 by 110{{nbsp}}ft or 8.5 by 33{{nbsp}}m){{r|potter}} now enclosed as additional reading rooms.{{r|potier}}

===Dedication===

[[File:HarryElkinsWidener portrait by GabrielFerrier.jpg|left|thumb|upright=0.80|[[Gabriel Ferrier]]'s por{{shy}}trait of Harry Widener hangs in the Memorial Rooms.{{r|ask_portrait}} ]]

The building was dedicated immediately after [[History and traditions of Harvard commencements|Com{{shy}}mence{{shy}}ment Day]] exercises on June{{nbsp}}24, 1915.
Lowell and Coolidge mounted the steps to the main door, where Eleanor Widener presented them with the building's keys.{{r|dedication}}
The first book formally brought into the new library was the 1634 edition of [[John Downame]]'s ''The Christian Warfare Against the Devil, World, and Flesh'',{{r|bentinck1980|p=18}}
believed (at the time) to be the only volume, of those bequeathed to the school by [[John Harvard (clergyman)|John Harvard]] in 1638, to have survived the 1764 burning of [[Harvard Hall (Harvard University)|Harvard Hall]].{{r|tomase}}

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary Dedication.png|thumb|right|upright=1.1|{{center|"President Lowell accepting the key from {{nobr|Mrs. Widener"}}}}]]

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary MainDoor.jpeg|thumb|right|upright=1.1 |{{center| "Even from the very entrance one [can glimpse] the portrait of young Harry Widener" {{nobr|far inside.}} }}]]

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary MainDoor Detail.jpeg|thumb|right|upright=1.1 | {{center|Above the door, [[hallmark]]s of 15th-century printers: {{nobr|[[William Caxton|Caxton]]; [[Berchthold Rembolt|Rembolt]];}} [[Aldus Manutius|Aldus]]; {{nobr|[[Johann Fust|Fust]] and [[Peter Schöffer|Schöffer]].{{r|printers}}}} }}
]]

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary StairsToMemorialRooms.jpeg|thumb|right|upright=1.1
| {{ center| Flanking the Memorial Rooms' entrance, murals by [[John Singer Sargent]] honor {{nobr|World War I dead.}} }}
]]

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary MemorialRoomsLibrary ObliqueView.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.1
|{{center| The Memorial Rooms "<!--por{{shy}}trait, books, flowers, and furnish{{shy}}ings -->reflect an atmos{{shy}}phere of realism", wrote a visitor, {{nobr|"[as if]}} Harry Widener still lived among his books."{{hsp}}{{r|canoe|p=91}}
The desk at left was Harry {{nobr|Widener's own.{{NoteTag
|{{r|ask_furniture}}
The rug is a [[Heriz rug|Heriz Persian]];{{r|ask_rug}} on the desk is an unsigned [[Tiffany lamp]].{{r|ask_lamp}}
In the library's early years, when the Memorial Rooms served as the office of the Widener Collec{{shy}}tion's curator, fires were sometimes set in the fireplace.{{r|whitehill}}
<!--end nobr>>-->}}<!--end note>>-->}}<!--end center>>-->}}
]]

In the Memorial Rooms, after a benediction by Bishop [[William Lawrence (bishop)|William Lawrence]],{{r|transcript}} a portrait of Harry Widener
was unveiled, then remarks delivered by Senator [[Henry Cabot Lodge]] (speaking on "The Meaning of a Great Library"{{hsp}}{{r|lodge}} on behalf of Eleanor Widener) and Lowell ("For years we have longed for a library that would serve our purpose, but we never hoped to see such a library as this").{{r|dedication}}
Afterward (said the ''[[Boston Evening Transcript]]''{{hsp}}) "<!--After the ceremony of presenta{{shy}}tion, -->the doors were thrown open, and both graduates and under{{shy}}graduates had an opportu{{shy}}ni{{shy}}ty to see the beauties and utilities of this important univer{{shy}}sity acquisition."{{hsp}}{{r|transcript}}

"I hope it will become the heart of the University," Eleanor Widener said, "a centre for all the interests that make Harvard a great university."{{hsp}}{{r|alumni_19130616_collection}}

===<span id="memorial rooms"></span>Widener Memorial Rooms===

The central Memorial Rooms{{mdashb}}<!--<<formal name?-->an outer rotunda{{r|rotunda}} housing memorabilia of the life and death of Harry Widener,{{r|HEW_history}} and an inner library displaying the 3300 rare books collected by him{{mdashb}}were described by the ''[[Boston Herald|Boston Sunday Herald]]'' soon after the dedication:
{{blockquote|The [rotunda] is of [[Alabama marble]] except the domed ceiling, with fluted columns and [[Capital (architecture)#ionic capital|Ionic capitals]] [while the library] is finished in carved [[Quercus robur|English oak]], the carving having been done in England; the high bookcases are fitted with glass shelves and bronze sashes, the windows are hung with heavy curtains<!--, and in glass-covered cases under them are arranged some examples of the auto{{shy}}graphed presenta{{shy}}tion volumes which came to Mr. Widener. Handsome chairs and desk make the furnish{{shy}}ings here, and--> [and] upon the desks are vases filled with flowers.<!-- Flowers will always be a part of the furnish{{shy}}ings of this room, as the donor{{nbsp}}... has arranged that they shall be supplied at regular intervals.-->

The big marble fireplace and the portrait of Harry Widener occupy a large portion of the south wall. Standing front of the fireplace one may look through the vista made by the doorways, the staircases within and the stairs without and get a glimpse of the green campus.{{NoteTag
|{{r|browse}}
Trumbauer "had no rivals when it came to tempting clients to spend immodest sums", wrote Wayne Andrews,{{r|bentinck1980|p=16}}
and Biel wrote that he had "made his name and fortune by knowing that 'only a magnifi{{shy}}cent setting could hope to satisfy an American with a magnifi{{shy}}cent income,'<!--<<who is being quoted here?--> and he had already imparted such magnifi{{shy}}cence to the Widener and Elkins mansions and an assortment of other palaces{{nbsp}}... [He] knew who his client was, so he gave elaborate attention to memorial{{shy}}izing Harry in style" in the Memorial Rooms.{{r|canoe|p=89}}
}}
}}
Conversely, "even from the very entrance [of the building] one will catch a glimpse in the distance of the portrait of young Harry Widener<!--get img--> on the further wall [of the Memorial Rooms], if the intervening doors happen to be open."{{hsp}}{{r|lane_libj|p=325}}

For many years Eleanor Widener hosted Commencement Day luncheons in the Memorial Rooms.{{r|bentinck1980|p=20}}
The family underwrites their upkeep,{{r|halberstam}}
including weekly renewal of the flowers{{r|ask_flowers}}{{mdashb}}originally roses but now carnations.{{NoteTag
|{{r|bibliophobia}}
From the start it was Eleanor Widener's particular instruction that there always be flowers in the Memorial Room,{{r|browse}} and in March 1916 she reminded [[George Parker Winship]], curator of the Widener Collection (who at the time used the Memorial Room as his office): "Will you please see that at all times fresh flowers are kept on your table by the photograph of my dear son Harry, the same to be paid out of funds set aside for the maintenance of the Memorial Room. This is the only request I make, and I beg of you to see that it is always carried out."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=43}}
}}

===Amenities and deficiencies===

Touted as "the last word in library construction",{{r|contract}}
the new building's amenities included telephones, [[pneumatic tube]]s, book lifts and conveyors, elevators,{{r|snead}}
and a dining-room and kitchenette "for the ladies of the staff".{{r|lane_mem|p=676}}
Advertisements for the manufacturer of the building's shelving highlighted its "dark brown enamel finish, harmonizing with oak trim",{{r|snead_ad}}
and special interchangeable regular and oversize shelves meant that books on a given subject could be shelved together regardless of size.{{NoteTag
|{{r|snead}}
In the basement (later converted to additional shelving as stacks levels C and D after a further donation by Eleanor Widener in 1928){{hsp}}{{r|crime_1928}} were
:the [[dynamo]]s which run the five elevators and two book-lifts, the compressed air machinery for the pneumatic tubes, the dynamo and fan for the vacuum-cleaning system, a pump connected with the steam-heating apparatus, enormous fans which pump warm air into the Reading-Room and the stack, a filter through which passes all water which enters the building, and the connec{{shy}}tions for electric light and power. The building is to be heated by steam, conveyed through a tunnel from the plant of the [[Boston Elevated Railway|Elevated Railroad Company]], which also furnishes heat to the other buildings of the [[Harvard Yard|College Yard]] and to the freshman dormitories.{{r|lane_mem|p=328}}
{{paragraph break}}
The marble floors were polished using a machine "so simple that any laborer of ordinary intelli{{shy}}gence can operate it to advantage [yet it] can do the work of ten men rubbing by hand."{{hsp}}{{r|engineering}}
}}

''The Library Journal'' found "especially interesting not so much the spacious and lofty reading rooms"{{hsp}}{{r|tlj_may1915}} as the innovation{{r|metcalf1965|p=255}} of placing student [[carrel desk|carrels]] and private faculty studies directly in the stack, reflecting Lowell's desire to put "the massive resources of the stack close to the scholar's hand, reuniting books and readers in an intimacy that nineteenth-century ['closed-stack' library designs] had long precluded".{{ran|B|p=45–46}}
(Competition for the seventy{{r|lane_libj|p=327}} coveted faculty studies has been a longstanding administrative headache.){{NoteTag
|"The [faculty studies] are not all fully used," Coolidge wrote in 1917, "but you will understand that I can not go to a professor and tell him that I think he is not making use of his space and had better give it up. I have tried in some cases hinting to people that if they did not need their quarters there were others who could make good use of them. These hints have usually met with conspicuously little success."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=72{{hyp}}75}}
}}

Nonetheless, certain deficien{{shy}}cies were soon noted.{{ran|B|p=107|canoe|page2=89}}
A primitive form of air conditioning was aban{{shy}}doned within a few months.{{r|metcalf1965}}<!--<<need page #-->{{r|metcalf1988|p=97}}
"The need of better toilet facilities [in the stacks] has been pressed upon us during the past year by several rather distressing experiences," Widener Superintendent Frank Carney wrote discreetly in 1918.{{NoteTag
|"At present", Carney continued, "everyone using the stack is obliged to go to the basement to reach the public toilet. This in the case of a man using one of the top floors of the stack is a particularly long trip{{nbsp}}... An emergency toilet{{nbsp}}... would be a desirable thing."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=59}}
By 1937 security changes had made the situation even worse, so that someone on the lowest stack level had to climb seven flights of stairs, exit the stack, then descend another set of stairs to reach the basement toilet. Eventually toilets were installed in the stack by Harvard Librarian Keyes Metcalf, who later wrote that "As far as graduate students are concerned, I will go down in history as the man who provided toilet facilities in the Widener stack."{{hsp}}{{r|metcalf1988|p=139–40}}
}}
And after a university-wide search for castoff furniture left many of the stacks' 300 carrels still unequipped,{{r|furniture}} Coolidge wrote to {{nobr|[[J. P. Morgan Jr.]],}} "There is something rather humiliating in having to proclaim to the world that <!--we have 300 [carrels in the stacks] which furnish--> [Widener offers] unequalled opportunity to the scholar and investigator who wishes to come here, but that in order to use these opportu{{shy}}ni{{shy}}ties he must bring his own chair, table and electric lamp."
(A week later Coolidge wrote again: "Your very generous gift [has helped] pull me out of a most desperate situation."){{NoteTag
|{{r|bentinck1976|p=102}}
Even during construction Harvard officials worried about financing the new library's furnishings and equipment, which Eleanor Widener did not undertake to supply except in the case of the building's "great public rooms [which she] handsomely furnished".{{r|furniture}} In early 1914, for example, a series of letters between Lane and [[Snead & Co.]] (the builders of the stacks) discussed the design of signs which would direct patrons to the various subject classifications; but in June, Lane apologized for being unable to finalize a planned order for these signs:
:Our situation in regard to this is an embarrassing one{{nbsp}}... The College has no means in hand to cover this expense, and we do not see where we are going to get what is needed for this and other similar purposes. We do not feel ourselves in a position to ask Mrs. Widener or Mr. Trumbauer to provide these necessary fittings, indispensable as they are for the proper use of the shelves. The labels for the ends of the stack and the number plates we can of course do without by fastening up cardboard signs{{nbsp}}...

In another letter Lane proposed the economy measure of using bricks wrapped in paper as bookends.{{r|lane_snead}}
}}

Later-built tunnels, from the stacks level furthest underground, connect to nearby [[Pusey Library (Harvard University)|Pusey Library]], [[Lamont Library]],{{r|beefs}}
and [[Houghton Library]].{{r|kent}}
An enclosed bridge connecting to Houghton's reading room via a Widener window{{mdashb}}built after Eleanor Widener's heirs agreed to waive{{r|metcalf1988|p=75}} her gift's proscription of exterior additions or alterations{{r|bentinck1976|p=79}}{{mdashb}}was removed in 2004.{{r|bridge}}
Houghton and Lamont were built in the 1940s to relieve Widener,{{r|relieve}}
which had become simultaneously too small{{mdashb}}its shelves were full{{r|widener_history}}{{mdashb}}and too large{{mdashb}}its immense size
and complex catalog made books difficult to locate.{{NoteTag
|{{r|metcalf1988|p=27}} On any given floor of the stack, it is 400 feet (120&nbsp;m) from the entrance stairwell to the furthest shelves, and a patron "concerned with material in widely different fields may find that a tiresome amount of walking and stair climbing is involved."{{hsp}}{{r|metcalf1965|p=91,74}} English professor [[Howard Mumford Jones]] complained in 1950 that in preparing a lecture on [[Robert Frost]], after a long hunt for a bibliography listing works he would need to consult, then locating those works in the complicated catalogs, he found that
:the ''American Scholar'' is shelved on Floor A; the ''New English Quarterly'' under New England; the ''Classical Journal'' is shelved on Floor 5; and ''College English'' is in Educ on Floor B. I shall not go into the matter of distribution [of these works among wings] East, South, and West&nbsp;...{{ran|B|pp=133–34}}
}}
But with Harvard's collections doubling every 17 years, by 1965 Widener was again close to full,{{r|deficit}}
prompting construction of Pusey,{{r|newpusey}} and in the early 1980s library officials "pushed the panic button"{{r|panic}} again, leading to the construction of the [[Harvard Depository]] in 1986.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Rayman |first1=Noah S. |last2=Spitzer |first2=Elyssa A. L. |date=April 1, 2010 |title=Beyond The Stacks: Inside Harvard University Library's Depository |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/4/1/depository-library-books-facility/?page=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813025353/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/4/1/depository-library-books-facility/?page=1 |archive-date=August 13, 2022 |access-date=June 21, 2024 |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]]}}</ref>