Harry elkins widener memorial library

  • Harry elkins widener memorial library

    • Harry elkins widener memorial library

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  • Widener Library
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    • Widener Library!

    Widener Library

    Primary building of Harvard Library

    The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5 million books,[2] is the centerpiece of the Harvard Library system.

    It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collectorHarry Elkins Widener, and was built by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener soon after his death in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

    Widener's "vast and cavernous" [3]stacks hold works in more than one hundred languages which together comprise "one of the world's most comprehen­sive research collec­tions in the humanities and social sciences." [4] Its 57 miles (92 km) of shelves, along five miles (8 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." [5]

    At the building's heart are the Widener Memorial Rooms, displaying papers and mementos rec