Librarians for the History of Science
burchst@fas.harvard.edu
emilybell@fas.harvard.edu
Please feel free to email us with questions. We can make an appointment for you to come in, and we can talk at length about your project.
Emily Bell (emilybell@fas.harvard.edu) Research Librarian and Liaison to the Department of the History of Science, Lamont Library.
Fred Burchsted, (burchst@fas.harvard.edu) Research Librarian and Liaison to the Department of the History of Science, Widener Library.
List of kinds of primary sources with HOLLIS examples an links to research guides.
Three tactics for finding primary sources. They are best used together.
HOLLIS is the center of the Library ecosystem. This is often the best first step to see if we have something. In HOLLIS, click on "Online Access" or open the record and scroll down to the "Access Options" section. Check the HOLLIS section of this guide for more guidance.
Harvard Library Bookmark and Lean Library plugins can help you find out if we have access to books and articles online.
Books and other materials stored in facilities not on Harvard's main campus. Request this material through HOLLIS:
Sometimes Offsite storage material is in-library use only. For Widener, this is the Widener secure reading room on the 1st floor (formerly the Periodicals Room). Most Offsite storage material is available for scanning via Scan & Deliver (see below).
Use Scan & Deliver/Interlibrary Loan to request PDFs of articles and book chapters from HOLLIS when you cannot get online access. Limit: 2 chapters from a book or 2 articles from a journal.
Request materials from other libraries via InterLibrary Loan:
Borrow Direct allows Harvard students, faculty, and staff to request items from other libraries for delivery to Harvard within 4 business days. If the item you need is not available, try searching our partner institutions' collections in BorrowDirect.
If there are materials you'd like to see added to the library's collections, submit a purchase request and we will look into acquiring it. We can buy both physical and electronic copies of materials; specify if have a preference.
Special Collections are rare, unique, primary source materials in the library's collections. To access, look for "Request to Scan or Visit" in HOLLIS (to place a scanning request) or contact the repository directly. Most of our larger archival collections are able to provide scans.
Graduate students and visiting scholars are eligible to have a carrel in the Widener Library stacks. Start the process with the carrel request form. (If you do this right at the start of the semester, it may take a few weeks before you receive confirmation.) Materials from the Widener stacks, including non-circulating materials like bound periodicals, can be checked out to your carrel.
Our partnership with BorrowDirect allows physical access to libraries of fellow Ivy Plus institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
The Digital Scholarship Support Group offers workshops and support to faculty, students, and staff interested in digital research methods. See also GIS Mapping Resources and Visualization Support.