Widener's "vast and cavernous" [3] stacks hold works in more than one hundred languages which together comprise "one of the world's most comprehen­sive research collec­tions in the humanities and social sciences."

Each twelve months brings us nearer to a chaotic condition";[10]: 15 his successor Archibald Cary Coolidge asserted that the Boston Public Library was a better place to write an under­grad­u­ate thesis.

[11]: 29 Despite substantial additions in 1876 and 1907,[12] in 1910 a committee of architects termed Gore Hall unsafe [and] unsuitable for its object ... No amount of tinkering can make it really good ...

Hopelessly over­crowded ... leaks when there is a heavy rain ... intolerably hot in summer ... Books are put in double rows and are not infrequently left lying on top of one another, or actually on the floor ...[13]: 51–52 With university librarian William Coolidge Lane reporting that the building's light switches were delivering electric shocks to his staff,[14] and dormitory basements pressed into service as overflow storage[15] for Harvard's 543,000 books,[16]: 50 the committee drew up a proposal for replacement of Gore in stages.

[note 1] On April 15, 1912, Harry Elkins Widener‍—‌scion of two of the wealthiest families in America,[20] a 1907 graduate of Harvard College, and an accomplished bibliophile despite his youth[21]‍—‌died in the sinking of the Titanic.

[55] The central Memorial Rooms‍—‌an outer rotunda[56] housing memorabilia of the life and death of Harry Widener,[57] and an inner library displaying the 3300 rare books collected by him‍—‌were described by the Boston Sunday Herald soon after the dedication: The [rotunda] is of Alabama marble except the domed ceiling, with fluted columns and Ionic capitals [while the library] is finished in carved English oak, the carving having been done in England; the high bookcases are fitted with glass shelves and bronze sashes, the windows are hung with heavy curtains [and] upon the desks are vases filled with flowers.

[note 7] Conversely, "even from the very entrance [of the building] one will catch a glimpse in the distance of the portrait of young Harry Widener on the further wall [of the Memorial Rooms], if the intervening doors happen to be open."

[note 8] Touted as "the last word in library construction",[62] the new building's amenities included telephones, pneumatic tubes, book lifts and conveyors, elevators,[7] and a dining-room and kitchenette "for the ladies of the staff".

[note 9] The Library Journal found "especially interesting not so much the spacious and lofty reading rooms" [33] as the innovation[67]: 255  of placing student carrels and private faculty studies directly in the stack, reflecting Lowell's desire to put "the massive resources of the stack close to the scholar's hand, reuniting books and readers in an intimacy that nineteenth-century ['closed-stack' library designs] had long precluded".

[note 11] And after a university-wide search for castoff furniture left many of the stacks' 300 carrels still unequipped,[69] Coolidge wrote to J. P. Morgan Jr., "There is something rather humiliating in having to proclaim to the world that [Widener offers] unequalled opportunity to the scholar and investigator who wishes to come here, but that in order to use these opportu­ni­ties he must bring his own chair, table and electric lamp."

[73] Houghton and Lamont were built in the 1940s to relieve Widener,[74] which had become simultaneously too small‍—‌its shelves were full[75]‍—‌and too large‍—‌its immense size and complex catalog made books difficult to locate.

[82] According to the Harvard Library's own description, Widener's humanities and social sciences collections include holdings in the history, literature, public affairs, and cultures of five continents.

These collec­tions include significant holdings in linguistics, ancient and modern languages, folklore, economics, history of science and technology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

[83]: 4 Alone among the "megalibraries", only Harvard allows patrons the "long-treasured privilege" of entering the general-collections stacks to browse as they please, instead of requesting books through library staff.

[94] The works displayed in the Memorial Rooms comprise Harry Widener's collec­tion at the time of his death, "major monuments of English letters, many remarkable for their bindings and illustrations or unusual provenance":[9]: 9 Shakespeare First Folios;[37]: 362 a copy of Poems written by Wil.

Harvard's "greatest typographical treasure" [97]: 17 is one of the only thirty-eight perfect copies extant[98] of the Gutenberg Bible,[99] purchased while Harry was abroad by his grandfather Peter A. B.

[106][92] In addition, an accident of the building's layout led to the development of two separate card catalogs‍—‌the "Union" catalog and the "Public" catalog‍—‌housed on different floors and having a complex interrelationship "which perplexed students and faculty alike."

[107] The contents of the Treasure Room, holding Harvard's most precious rare books and manuscripts (other than the Harry Elkins Widener Collection itself) were transferred to newly built Houghton Library in 1942.

[116] Historian Barbara Tuchman considered "the single most formative experience" of her career the writing of her undergrad­uate thesis, for which she was "allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table under a window" in the Widener stacks, which were "my Archimedes' bathtub, my burning bush, my dish of mold where I found my personal penicillin."

[122] After the unrelated arrest of a book-theft ring operating at Harvard, there was a "noticeable increase in the number of missing books secretly returned to the library", the Transcript reported in 1932.

[29] Equipped with a hammer, pry bar, and other burglarious implements, the 20-year-old would-be thief[123] hid in a lavatory until after closing, then made his way to the roof, from which he descended via a knotted rope to break through a Memorial Room window.

But after smashing the bible's display case and placing its two volumes in a knapsack, he found the additional 70 pounds (32 kg) made it impossible for him to reclimb the rope.

[86]: D Eventually he fell some 50 feet (15 m)[97]: 45  to the pavement of one of the light courts, where he lay semicon­scious[124] until his moans were heard by a janitor;[97]: 45 he was found about 1 a.m.[125] with injuries including a fractured skull.

[123] Tonis specu­lated that the attempt may have been modeled on a similar caper depicted in the 1964 film Topkapi,[125] though a retired Harvard librarian later commented that the thief (who was later judged insane)[126] "evidently knew nothing about books‍—‌or, at least, about selling them ...

[128][129] Following the occupation of University Hall by protesters, and their subsequent violent ejection by police, volunteer librarians and faculty stood watch inside Widener for several nights.

[85] At trial "The Slasher" said he had acted in revenge for the eighteen months he had been detained in a state psychiatric hospital after expiration of a six-month jail term he had received for a minor offense.

"Patrons requesting directions to a women's restroom were routinely misled, denied access, or simply told that such things did not exist at a college for men such as Harvard."

[B]: 112-4 A five-year, $97 million renovation completed in 2004[44] (the first since the building opened)[148] added fire suppression and environ­men­tal control systems, upgraded wiring and communica­tions, remodeled various public spaces, and enclosed the light courts to create additional reading rooms[44] (beneath which several levels of new offices and mechanical equipment were hidden).

[152] The marble floors were polished using a machine "so simple that any laborer of ordinary intelli­gence can operate it to advantage [yet it] can do the work of ten men rubbing by hand."

[66] When Widener was built ventilation for books was emphasized, possibly to prevent mold; thus a slit ran along the base of every row of shelves, allowing air to flow from the floor below.