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 Memorial Church, Widener serves as the centerpiece of the 15.6 million-volume Harvard University Library system, the largest university library system in the world. The 320,000-square-foot (30,000 m2) Beaux-Arts brick building houses 57 miles (92 km) of bookshelves and 3 million volumes. Among them is one of the few remaining perfect copies of the Gutenberg Bible. Widener includes many special collections, including African, American, Asian, Germanic, Judaic, Iberian, Middle Eastern, Modern Greek, and Slavic.
Read more about Widener Library: History, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the word library:
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)