Editing Widener Library (section)

==Collections and stacks==

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary SneadAdvertisement 1915.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.1
|"The shelves are lost in the dark{{shy}}ness above, and to either side they run off to {{shy|in|fin|i|ty}}", wrote [[Thomas Wolfe]].{{r|mitchell}} Each of the ten lev{{shy}}els has some 187 rows of shelving.{{wbo}}{{r|lane_mem|p=327}}<!--something wrong with the pg# here-->
]]

[[File:WidenerLibraryStackTier.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.1
|{{shy|The two lowest stack levels before instal|la|tion of inter|ven|ing floor panels}}]]

The ninety-unit Harvard Library system,{{r|AZ|p=361}} of which Widener is the anchor, is the only academic library among the world's five "megalibraries"{{mdashb}}Widener, the [[New York Public Library]], the [[Library of Congress]], [[Bibliothèque nationale de France|France's Bibliothèque Nationale]], and the [[British Library]]{{r|stam|p=352}}{{mdashb}}making it "unambigu{{shy}}ously the greatest univer{{shy}}sity library in the world," in the words of a Harvard official.{{r|speaking}}

According to the Harvard Library's own description, Widener's humanities and social sciences collections include
{{blockquote|<!--The humanities and social sciences collec{{shy}}tions of the Widener Library are represented by distinguished-->holdings in the history, literature, public affairs, and cultures of five continents. Of particular note are the collec{{shy}}tions of [[Africana studies|Africana]], [[American studies|Americana]], European [[local history]], [[Judaica]], [[Latin American]] studies, [[Middle Eastern]] studies, [[Slavs|Slavic]] studies, and rich collec{{shy}}tions of materials for the study of Asia, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and [[Classics|Greek and Latin antiquity]]. These collec{{shy}}tions include significant holdings in [[linguistics]], ancient and modern languages, [[folklore]], [[economics]], [[history of science]] and technology, [[philosophy]], [[psychology]], and [[sociology]].{{NoteTag|
{{r|collections}}
However, "Harvard does not collect all subjects and all types of material{{nbsp}}... The holdings in subject areas not represented in the curriculum (such as agriculture) are understandably limited{{nbsp}}..."{{hsp}}{{r|stam|p=352}}
<!--end note>>--> }}<!--end quote>>-->}}
The building's 3.5 million volumes{{r|forrest}} occupy {{convert|57|mi|km}} of shelves{{r|battles_unquiet|p=4}} along five miles (8{{nbsp}}km) of aisles{{r|fox}} on ten levels divided into three wings each.{{r|battles_unquiet|p=4}}

Alone among the "megalibraries", only Harvard allows patrons the "long-treasured privilege" of entering the general-collections stacks to browse as they please, instead of requesting books through library staff.{{NoteTag
|{{r|destroyer}}{{r|klepts|p=E}}
It was not always so. Originally "school-boys" earning forty dollars per month (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|40|1920|r=-1}} in {{Inflation-year|US}}){{Inflation-fn|US}} fetched books requested by patrons via slips. "Should a slip be received for a book in a part of the stack where a boy has just been sent{{mdashb}}particularly in the West stack, which is the farthest away from the central station{{mdashb}}the [request] is telephoned across on the internal telephone."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=56}} But by about 1930 Widener's stacks "were almost wide open to anyone who wanted to enter", so much so that in a single day a group of thieves was able to steal some one hundred valuable works on American history.{{r|metcalf1980}}
}}
Until a recent renovation the stacks had little signage{{mdashb}}"There was the expecta{{shy}}tion that if you were good enough to qualify to get into the stacks you certainly didn't need any help" (as one official put it){{r|potier}}
so that "learning to [find books in] Widener was like a rite of passage, a test of manhood",{{r|rolbein}}
and a 1979 monograph on library design complained, "After one goes through the main doors of Harvard's Widener Library, the only visible sign says merely ENTER."{{hsp}}{{r|pollet}}
At times color-coded lines and shoeprints have been applied to the floors to help patrons keep their bearings.{{r|bearings}}{{r|gewertz}}

As of 2015 some 1700 persons enter the building each day, and about 2800 books are checked out.{{r|arms}}
Another 3{{nbsp}}million Widener items reside offsite{{r|barcoding}} (along with many millions of items from other Harvard libraries) at the [[Harvard Depository]] in [[Southborough, Massachusetts|Southbor{{shy}}ough, Massachu{{shy}}setts]], from which they are retrieved overnight on request.{{ran|B|p=170{{hyp}}1}} A project to insert [[barcode]]s into each book, begun in the late 1970s, had some 1{{nbsp}}million volumes yet to reach as of 2006.{{r|barcoding}}

===Harry Elkins Widener Collection===

The works displayed in the Memorial Rooms comprise Harry Widener's collec{{shy}}tion at the time of his death, "major monuments of English letters, many remarkable for their bindings and illustrations or unusual provenance":{{r|bentinck1980|p=9}}
<!--mention Bacon that went down with the ship-->
Shakespeare [[First Folio]]s;{{r|AZ|p=362}}
a copy of ''Poems written by Wil.{{nbsp}}Shake-speare, gent.'' (1640) in its original sheepskin binding;{{r|cyclo}}
an inscribed copy of [[James Boswell|Boswell]]'s ''[[Life of Samuel Johnson]]''; [[Samuel Johnson|Johnson]]'s own Bible ("used so much by its owner that several pages were worn out and Johnson copied them over in his own writing");{{r|halberstam}}
and first editions, presenta{{shy}}tion copies, and similarly valuable volumes of [[Robert Louis Stevenson]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Charlotte Brontë]], [[William Blake|Blake]], [[George Cruikshank]], [[Isaac Cruikshank]], [[Robert Cruikshank]]{{r|hewc}}
and [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]{{mdashb}}including the petty cash book kept by Dickens while a young law clerk.{{r|hellman}}
Book collector [[George S. Hellman|George Sidney Hellman]], writing soon after Harry Widener's death, observed that he was "not satisfied alone in having a rare book or a rare book inscribed by the author; it was with him a prerequisite that the volume should be in immaculate condition."{{hsp}}{{r|hellman}}

Harry Widener "died suddenly, just as he was beginning to be one of the world's great collectors,"{{hsp}}{{r|alumni_19130616_collection}}
said the Collection's first curator.{{r|whitehill|p=6}}
"They formed a young man's library, and are to be preserved as he left it"{{hsp}}{{r|alumni_19130616_collection}}{{mdashb}}except
that the Widener family has the exclusive privilege of adding to it.{{NoteTag
|{{r|halberstam}}
The December{{nbsp}}31, 1912 agreement between Eleanor Widener and the [[President and Fellows of Harvard College]] provides that "this collection, together with such books as may be added to it by members of the family of the Donor, shall at all times be kept separate and apart from the general library of Harvard{{nbsp}}... Harvard is not{{nbsp}}... ever to add anything to the said Harry Elkins Widener collection{{nbsp}}... [S]aid books shall not be taken or removed from the two rooms specially set apart{{nbsp}}... excepting only when necessary for the repair or restoration of any volume{{nbsp}}..."{{hsp}}{{r|bentinck1976|pp=78–79}}
<!--END NOTE>>-->}}
{{anchor|gutenbergbible}}
Harvard's "greatest typographical treasure"{{hsp}}{{r|houghton_chron|p=17}}
is one of the only thirty-eight perfect copies extant{{r|HEW_gutenberg}} of the [[Gutenberg Bible#Surviving copies|Gutenberg Bible]],{{r|houghton_gutenberg}}
purchased while Harry was abroad by his grandfather [[Peter Arrell Brown Widener|Peter A.{{nbsp}}B. Widener]] (who had intended to surprise Harry with it once the ''Titanic'' docked in New York){{r|halberstam}} and added to the Collection by the Widener family in 1944.{{NoteTag
|{{r|ask_gutenberg}}
Harry Widener knew his grandfather had bought the Gutenberg Bible, but not that it was intended for him. "I wish it was for me but it is not", he wrote to a friend.{{r|HEW_Livingston}}
After Harry's death, and (soon after) that of his grandfather, the Bible passed to Harry's uncle;{{clarify|reason=which uncle?|date=May 2014}} at the uncle's death Harry's brother and sister added the Bible to the Harry Elkins Widener Collec{{shy}}tion because it "had been bought for Harry and should be among his books.<!--<<source is unclear on who is speaking here-->"
[[Yale University|Yale]] also has a Gutenberg, though not in "quite as fine condition" as Harvard's, according to Harvard officials.{{r|near_best}}
}}

Like all Harvard's valuable books, works in the Widener Collec{{shy}}tion may be consulted by researchers demonstrating a genuine research need.{{r|widener_hewmc}}

===<span id="dual catalogs"></span>Parallel classification systems and dual catalogs===

[[File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary CardCatalogs 1915.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|The original catalog room, {{shy|"though mag|nif|i|cent ar|chi|tec|tur|al|ly, looked [as though the catalog cases, with their 3796 drawers] had simply been dropped hap|haz|ard|ly into them."}}{{hsp}}{{r|metcalf1965|p=225}}{{r|lb_ad}} ]]

Like many large libraries, Widener originally classified its holdings according to its own idiosyncratic system{{mdashb}}the "Widener" (or "Harvard") system{{mdashb}}which (writes Battles) follows "the division of knowledge in its [early twentieth-century] formulation. The ''Aus'' class contains books on the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]]; the ''Ott'' class serves the purpose for the [[Ottoman Empire]]. [[Dante]], [[Molière]], and [[Montaigne]] each gets a class of his own."{{hsp}}{{r|battles_unquiet|p=15}}

In the 1970s new arrivals began to be classified according to a modified version of the [[Library of Congress Classification|Library of Congress system]].{{r|wiegand|p=256}}{{ran|B|p=159}}
The two systems' differences reflect "competing theories of knowl{{shy}}edge{{nbsp}}... In a sense, the [old] Widener system was [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]]; its divi{{shy}}sions were empirical, describing and reflecting the languages and cultural origins of books and highlighting their relations to one another in language, place, and time; [the Library of Congress system], by contrast, was [[Platonic idealism|Platonic]], looking past the surface of language and nation to reflect the idealized, essential discipline in which each [item] might be said to belong."{{hsp}}{{ran|B|p=158-9}}

Because of the impracticality of reclassifying millions of books, those received before the changeover remain under their original "Widener" classifications. Thus among works on a given subject, older books will be found at one shelf location (under a "Widener" classification) and newer ones at another (under a related Library of Congress classification).{{r|movement|gewertz}}

In addition, an accident of the building's layout led to the development of two separate card catalogs{{mdashb}}the "Union" catalog and the "Public" catalog{{mdashb}}housed on different floors and having a complex interrelationship "which perplexed students and faculty alike." It was not until the 1990s that the electronic Harvard On-Line Library Information System was able to completely supplant both physical catalogs.{{ran|B|p=137,192}}

===Departmental and special libraries===
[[File:HarvardCollegeLibrary CatalogCardC.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.1|[[Library catalog|Catalog card]]. In the "Harvard system", ''C'' denotes Church History and Theology.]]

The building also houses a number of special libraries in dedicated spaces outside the stacks, includ{{shy}}ing:
{{columns-list|colwidth=23em|
* The [[Fred N. Robinson]] [[Celtic studies|Celtic]] Seminar Library
* The [[Hamilton A.R. Gibb]] [[Islamic studies|Islamic]] Seminar Library
* The [[Milman Parry]] Collection of [[Oral Literature]]
* The [[Herbert Weir Smyth]] {{nobr|[[classics|Classical]] Library}}
* The [[Francis James Child]] Memorial Library {{nobr|(English Department)}}
* The [[James A. Notopoulos]] Collection of {{nobr|[[Modern Greek]] Ballads and Songs}}
}}
There are also special collections in the [[history of science]], [[Linguistics|linguis{{shy}}tics]], [[Near East]]ern languag{{shy}}es and civiliza{{shy}}tions, [[Palaeography|paleogra{{shy}}phy]], and [[Sanskrit]].{{r|special}}

The contents of the Treasure Room, holding Harvard's most precious rare books and manuscripts (other than the Harry Elkins Widener Collection itself) were transferred to newly built [[Houghton Library]] in 1942.{{r|houghton_chron|p=15}}