Library Research Guide for U.S. Foreign Relations

• Widener Library Call Number Guide (Scroll down to Finding Materials
• Widener Library tours are available every Thursday at 2:00 in the Widener lobby

Finding a pertinent book on the shelf and then looking at its neighbors is an excellent way of finding more material, because the call number system is also a subject system:  QH 30 means biographies of biologists and naturalists.

Many of Harvard's library materials are located in Offsite storage. When HOLLIS "Location and Availability " indicates that a title is in Offsite storage, hit Request Item. After your Harvard Key there is a pull down menu allowing you to choose delivery location. Sometimes there is a single delivery option. Submit your request. You will receive an email usually in next business day (not weekends or holidays) morning.  Often the item is not actually ready for pick-up until mid-afternoon.  Sometimes Offsite storage material is in-library use only.  For Widener, this is the Phillips Reading Room (up the stairs in the Circulation Room).  Most Offsite storage material is available for scanning via Scan & Deliver (see below). 

The Harvard Direct system allows you to request that a book from one library be delivered to another or paged and brought to the circulation desk of the home library.  Hit Request item on the HOLLIS record for a book that is not checked out. Delivery takes 1-4 days.

If you have the citation to an article which is not available online or the pages or chapter (up to 30 pp.) from a book, Scan & Deliver will email you the pdf within 1-4 days. Hit Scan & Deliver on the HOLLIS record.  For an article in a journal or pages from a book not owned by Harvard, Interlibrary Loan will obtain scans: choose Request Article/Chapter under ILL Requests on your ILL page.

If a book is checked out or not owned by Harvard, you can probably get it within 1-4 days via Borrow Direct.  This is quicker than recalling it from the person who has it.

Interlibrary Loan will obtain, generally within 1 week-10 days, material not held by Harvard.  This includes books (for which try the quicker Borrow Direct first), DVDs, microfilm and other formats: choose Request Loan under ILL Requests on your ILL page.  ILL will also obtain scans of periodical articles and book chapters not available at Harvard: choose Request Article/Chapter under ILL Requests on your ILL page.  This takes only 1-4 days. Use WorldCat to verify references for InterLibrary Loan. Give them the Accession no. at the bottom of the WorldCat record in the OCLC field of the ILL request form.