Talk:Widener Library

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[edit] Street address?

What is the actual address for the library? Or the longitude/latitude? --Ragemanchoo (talk) 07:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Myth"

"There is an untrue urban myth at Harvard that in order to prevent what befell Widener from happening to another student, all students of Harvard College are required to prove that they can swim before they are allowed to graduate as is actually the case at Cornell and Stanford. While Harvard did require a swimming test of students in the 1920s, it had nothing to do with Widener, and Harvard no longer administers a swimming test for students." Is this useful? --Wetman 29 June 2005 20:29 (UTC)

Yes, because this urban myth is so widespread. It's even reported on by Snopes.com. —Lowellian (reply) 17:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the legend is worth mentioning, but not at such length. The previous text seemed fine -- indeed, it could probably be cut a bit. If more info is worth immortalizing in the WP, perhaps more of the Snopes comments could be reported on in a separate article, e.g. Swim test legend at U.S. universities. --Macrakis 17:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Library?

Is the Widener Library really considered that large? The Harold B. Lee Library at BYU is significantly larger in terms of both amount of materials and shelf-space (as a single library building) than the Widener Library. The Jade Knight 09:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The current text says it is "among" the largest library buildings. This could refer to floor area, building volume, or (probably most relevant to a library) linear shelf-space. I have no idea what the ranking of library buildings is in linear shelf-space. And I don't know how exactly you would differentiate libraries from archives, some of which must be enormous. If you can find some reliable information, let's use it. If Widener is not among the top 5-10, I agree that "among the largest" is not appropriate. Certainly much of the Harvard College Library content is now in other buildings (Pusey) or off-site. --Macrakis 15:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Its hard to say what is in "Widener" proper as the stacks are continuous underground with several other Harvard libraries. Some libraries count the storage library as part of their main collection, some don't. But archives can be differentiated,as they dont count volumes, usually not having any, but count by linear feet.
Our University of Michigan Library article says the the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library has 3.5 million volumes. The American Library Association show Harvard's as the largest American library system - except the Library of Congress, of course. Amazingly Boston Public Library system is the second largest. Rmhermen 21:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
BYU's main library (single building) had 8½ million items in circulation as of 2005, has 98 miles of shelving, and is 665,000 square feet. In terms of size, that makes it about twice as big as this. The Jade Knight 09:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
BYU does not have 8 million vols, it has 8 million items ; the ARL show it at about 3.6 million vols. Second, it does not have all of them in circulation. If you really want to dispute about wording, and ranking get these sorts of basics correct. DGG 10:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Revisions

If the claim that it is among the largest libraries in the world is going to be kept, either a reliable source must be found for this claim, or (less preferable) at least a comparison to other large libraries must be made. The Jade Knight 00:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Harvard has the highest holdings of any american or canadian research library according to ARL, using "library " to mean the collection of books at a university. Their comparison is enough, and the figures will be added to the article proper. Please use some common sense.

Frankly, it is of very secondary general importance to compare the number of books in a particular building with those in another. I removed that part of the sentence as not worth the discussion. The books in a main library building are generally only a part --sometimes a small part -- of the total holdings of the university. DGG 10:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

To simplify discussion, i copy part of the ARL holding table from the library page--just the top 40, from Harvard down to BYU. html> <head> <style> </style> </head>

<body link="#0000d4" vlink="#993366">

<col width=55> <col width=127> <col class=xl24 width=124> (the rest is on the Library talk page. It and some other comparative data -- subscriptions, money, will be moved to the academic library page. when I have time to get it compact enough. Personally, I don't think academic library ranks in these terms matter all that much to user service, even for research, at least once you get into the top third of the table, the part shown here. But they are interesting. DGG10:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC) DGG10:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ranked Lists for Institutions for 2005
STANFORD reported 7.0 million in 1998/99, the last year it provided data.
Rank Institution name Volumes In Library
1 HARVARD 15,555,533
2 YALE 12,025,695
3 ILLINOIS, URBANA 10,370,777
4 TORONTO 10,342,574
5 CALIF., BERKELEY 9,985,905
6 COLUMBIA 9,277,042
7 TEXAS 8,937,002
8 MICHIGAN 8,133,917
9 CALIF., LOS ANGELES 8,064,896
10 WISCONSIN 7,911,834
11 CORNELL 7,644,371
12 CHICAGO 7,363,549
13 INDIANA 7,241,929
14 WASHINGTON 6,639,850
15 MINNESOTA 6,587,430
16 PRINCETON 6,495,597
17 ALBERTA 6,190,396
18 OHIO STATE 5,936,434
19 PENNSYLVANIA 5,760,065
20 NORTH CAROLINA 5,710,686
21 DUKE 5,560,966
22 BRITISH COLUMBIA 5,523,194
23 ARIZONA 5,340,726
24 VIRGINIA 5,053,162
25 PENNSYLVANIA STATE 5,031,196
26 NEW YORK 4,939,724
27 MICHIGAN STATE 4,830,861
28 OKLAHOMA 4,796,089
29 PITTSBURGH 4,786,175
30 NORTHWESTERN 4,603,824
31 IOWA 4,551,217
32 GEORGIA 4,179,316
33 RUTGERS 4,169,347
34 ARIZONA STATE 4,156,732
35 FLORIDA 4,137,528
36 KANSAS 4,121,573
37 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 3,921,704
38 WASHINGTON U.-ST. LOUIS 3,694,504
39 JOHNS HOPKINS 3,648,821
40 BRIGHAM YOUNG 3,621,577