1. Introduction
Welcome to graduate study in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. This guide is intended to help you get started finding what you need among Harvard's many research resources. Please feel free to ask librarians in any of Harvard's libraries for assistance; and remember that you may email questions at any time, either to Ask a Librarian or to the Contact Person for this guide.
Quick FAQ
Q. How do I find someone in the library to help me get started with my research?
A. See Reaching the Right People in this guide.
Q. Which library should I use?
A. Ask librarians, check the HOLLIS Catalog to see where materials in your field are located, and see the Harvard Libraries by Subject list and Harvard College Library Collections At a Glance
Q. Do I get materials myself or are they delivered to me?
A. Most Harvard libraries are open-stack; you will enter and find items yourself. Some special collections, such as the Harvard Map Collection, the Harvard University Archives, the Houghton Library, and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, are closed; you will find out request forms and items will be delivered to you.
Q. Is there a limit on how many items I can take out? For how long I can keep them?
A. In general, there is no limit on the number of items you may check out. For loan periods through the Harvard College Library, see the chart on this page. For loan periods in the libraries of other faculties, see the library information pages: Baker Library (Business), Frances Loeb Harvard (Design), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Gutman Library (Education), Kennedy School of Government Library, Law School Library. and Countway Library of Medicine,
Q. What can I do if the resources I want aren't available in the Harvard Library?
A. Items not available through this library may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. (You also may wish to double-check with a librarian; perhaps what you are looking for is here but difficult to locate in the catalog.)
Q. How do I request a Research Assistant card?
A. See Research Assistant card information here.
Overview
There are over 90 libraries at Harvard that comprise the Harvard library system, with combined holdings of close to 16 million items.
More than 10 million of those items are part of the collection of a centrally administered unit within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that is referred to as the Harvard College Library (HCL), comprising: Cabot Science, Fine Arts (includes Harvard Film Archive), Fung, Harvard-Yenching, Houghton (includes Harvard Theatre Collection and Woodberry Poetry Room), Lamont (includes Environmental Information Services), Loeb Music, Quad, Tozzer, and Widener libraries, and the Harvard Map Collection and Social Sciences Program (includes Government Documents and Microforms Collections and Numeric Data Collections).
See the Harvard College Libraries site for brief descriptions of HCL libraries and links to their websites.
see the Harvard Libraries site for a complete listing of all University libraries.
All the HCL libraries and programs invite you to explore the possibilities for research that our collections and services provide.
Timely Information
See FAS Academic Calendar and Libraries Open RIGHT NOW.
Interdisciplinary Programs within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
There are an increasing number of organizations fostering interdisciplinary and transciplinary research at Harvard, which may be of interest to graduate students. See, for example, Humanities Center at Harvard, Harvard Integrated Life Sciences, and the Graduate Consortium of Women's Studies.
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