Widener Library

From Freepedia

The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, commonly known as Widener Library, is the primary building of the library system of Harvard University. Located on the south side of Harvard Yard directly across from the Memorial Church, Widener Library serves as the centerpiece of the 13.5 million volume Harvard University library system, the largest university library system in the world. With 65 miles of bookshelves and 3 million volumes, Widener Library is among the largest single-building repositories of books in the world.

Widener includes many special collections, including African, American, Asian, Germanic, Judaic, Iberian, Middle Eastern, Modern Greek, and Slavic.

History

Widener Library, which opened with a solemn ceremony on June 24, 1915, commemorates Harry Elkins Widener (born January 3, 1885 in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania), a 1907 Harvard graduate, who was a book collector and victim of the Titanic disaster. His mother, Eleanor Elkins, made a $3.5 million donation to Harvard University to build a library named after him. The library was designer by Horace Trumbauer & Associates, the architect of many private houses for the intertwined Elkins and widener families of Philadelphia. The Associate responsible for designing Widener was the chief designer of the firm, architect Julian F. Abele, the first major Afro-American architect.

From approximately 1997-2004, the Widener Library underwent a comprehensive renovation costing $97 million that included: adding fire suppression systems, adding air conditioning, enclosing light courts, and remodeling the stacks and public spaces. Under the terms of the Widener family donation, the exterior of the library is never to be altered, or else ownership of the building reverts to the city of Cambridge. Because of this, Harvard has been limited in its renovation options. This has led to some interesting renovations though, such creating a causeway to another building through what was a large window.

Popular culture

According to the fictional Cthulhu mythos of H. P. Lovecraft, Widener Library houses one of the few existing copies of the Necronomicon in the world, hidden somewhere among its endless stacks.

A popular urban legend claims that the Harvard swim test (which no longer exists) was a condition tied to the Widener donation. The popular urban legend website Snopes claims this is unlikely. [1]