In collaboration with Preservation Services Collection Care, Imaging Services has established a new programmatic work-stream: the Widener Library, digitization of ReCAP items committed to retain program. As the name suggests, this project is connected to the ReCAP (Research Collections and Preservation Consortium) program, to which Harvard Library is a dedicated partner.  

ReCAP’s mission is to support cooperative and efficient resource sharing among member libraries in service of their respective user communities. However, some library materials are too fragile to be loaned out, and in some cases, are not even suitable for conservation treatment. This project addresses that challenge by providing digital facsimiles of such materials. Some of these materials are still under copyright; the ReCAP team will determine how best to make them accessible to our patrons. 

According to the project proposal, the goal is to:  

“Provide facsimiles for materials unsuitable for conservation treatment, either due to poor condition or artifactual value, but which need to be available to fulfill Harvard Library’s commitment to the cooperative stewardship of the shared ReCAP collection.” 

The first batch of items have already been reviewed, batched, digitized, and deposited to DRS (Digital Repository Services) – the Library’s preservation digital repository. The first item in this batch is The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope.

Extending access to library holdings is a commitment Harvard Library holds dear. But, when physical materials cannot be handled due to fragility, the Library may provide access to a facsimile copy. Today, digitized copies are shared where once sharing copies on microfilm was the norm. Imaging Services has long played an instrumental role helping Harvard Library share collections using imaging technologies. 

A notable historical example. On November 25, 1949, Mr. Richard Gregg Irwin of the University of California’s East Asiatic Library wrote to Mr. Alfred K’aiming Ch’iu, head librarian of the Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute¹, to request six books via interlibrary loan.² Mr. Ch’iu replied that the library held only two of the requested titles — Cang shu³ and Xu cang shu⁴ — both of which were rare and unavailable for loan, even to Harvard professors. Instead, he offered to have the volumes microfilmed and the films sent to Mr. Irwin.⁵ For decades, Harvard libraries have followed this practice, sending fragile or restricted materials to Imaging Services (formerly the Microform Reproduction department) to fulfill such requests. 

Another example of Harvard’s commitment to preservation and access is its Preservation Review program, launched in 2006 as a component of a more expansive “Brittle Books Program”. A collaboration between Preservation Services Collections Care and Imaging Services, this ongoing program is use-driven, identifying books that need conservation treatment if they’re to be sturdy enough for continued use, and digitization in cases where physical treatments cannot sufficiently mitigate the risk of continued handling. Here is the first item we digitized and preserved from this project.

And the most recently prepared and queued item, “Poor Richard’s” New Farmer’s Almanac. For the Year of Our Lord 1834, was also from Widener Library.

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1. The name was changed to Harvard-Yenching Library in 1965. The administrative responsibility for the library reverted to the Harvard College Library in 1976. See: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/harvard-yenching-library/.  ↩︎
2. Richard Gregg Irwin to Alfred K’aiming Ch’iu, November 25, 1949, Harvard-Yenching Library files, 1928-1965 哈佛燕京圖書館檔案, hyl00026. Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard Library, Harvard University. ↩︎
3. Li, Zhi, and Hong Jiao. 1599. Cang shu: 68 juan. China: Jiao Hong Jingling kan ben. 
   Catalog record: https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990077576970203941/catalog
   Digital version: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4460950  ↩︎
4. Li, Zhi, and Renxi Chen. 1623. Xu cang shu: 27 juan. China. 
   Catalog Record: https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990077608630203941/catalog
   Digital version: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4481636 ↩︎