Some Basics
Libraries and Collections at Harvard
There are more than seventy libraries supporting research throughout Harvard University. The Harvard Libraries site is a gateway to the resources in these libraries and archives, as well as to the thousands of electronic resources to which the Harvard Libraries subscribe.
Widener Library: The single largest library at Harvard holds one of the world's most comprehensive research collections in the humanities and social sciences and is a key resource for study in history and literature.
Ukrainian Research Institute Library: A substantial Ukrainian reference collection; complete works of major authors; offprints and conference papers of contemporary scholarship on Ukrainian and works of Ukrainian scholars in all disciplines. Special collections include manuscript collections of various Ukrainian civic and political leaders, composers, educators, journalists, musicologists, and writers, as well as the archives of several Ukrainian cultural institutions. Other special collections include photographs, postcards, maps, vertical files, and audio tapes.
Fung Library: Includes The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies collection, books and periodicals on Russian and Eurasian studies, particularly in the social sciences (political science, economics, sociology, and history) as well as archives and special collections on Russian and Soviet history.
Lamont Library: For government documents, politics, and political theory, as well as archival collections on microfilm.
Houghton Library: Holds many of the Slavic rare books, manuscripts and archival collections at Harvard, including a copy of Ivan Fedorov’s Bukvar’ (Primer) (L’viv, 1574), the first book to be published on the territory of Ukraine and one of only two known copies outside Eastern Europe and Russia.
Harvard Map Collection: The oldest map collection in America, with about 400,000 maps, more than 6,000 atlases, and several thousand reference books, as well as extensive digital collections and map layers. Includes the Bohdan and Neonila Krawciw Ucrainica Map Collection.
Law School Library: Collection contains foreign, international and comparative legal materials in the International Legal Studies section.
Harvard Kennedy School Library: Focus of the collection is mainly on U.S. politics but also includes coverage of international affairs.
For additional library information, locations, and hours, consult the main portal for the Harvard Library.
To get most books and journal articles in any of these libraries, you will need to find the call number (also known as the classification number) for each book or journal and then locate it in the library stacks. You can find the call number for almost all books and journals owned by Harvard libraries in HOLLIS, the online library catalog. For information on locating books and journals on the shelves in Widener Library, please consult How to find books in the stacks.
To find what you need in a hurry, schedule a consultation!
Claim Your HarvardKey
It is important to set up your HarvardKey account in order to use the library and its resources.
One reason you will need HarvardKey is for requesting library materials from the Harvard Depository. The Harvard Depository is a storage facility located 20 miles from Harvard Yard. When you look for a book in HOLLIS, the availability screen will tell you if a book is in the Harvard Depository. If it is, then you can click the "request" link, enter your Harvard ID number and PIN, click send request and then the book will be delivered to the Circulation Desk for pick-up by the next business day.
Another reason is that some networked electronic library resources are available to you only through a subscription paid for by the Harvard libraries. When you use these resources outside a Harvard library, you will be asked to enter your HarvardKey.
If you do not yet have HarvardKey and would like to use these library resources outside of a library, go to the HarvardKey Site.
Transliteration Tables
All the books and other materials that are received by the Harvard University Libraries in non-Roman character-based languages are transliterated into Roman characters according to guidelines produced by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. These guidelines are available online at:
ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts
Use these guidelines when you are trying to find a title or author and you are not sure how it would be spelled using roman characters. If you have any trouble, please contact Olha Aleksic.
Questions? Contact Us!
Schedule a follow-up consultation:
Olha Aleksic, Petro Jacyk Bibliographer for Ukrainian Collections, Americas, Europe and Oceania Division (AEOD) at Widener Library, and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Library, 617-496-2458, e-mail