2arrs, 2ells - Bibliophilia, of a sort

Spent the past half hour scouring Harvard’s libraries for a book that Amazon is taking far too long to ship, and I realized how much I love the libraries here. I’m not really a bibliophile, but I am in love with the oddities and atmospheres of Harvard’s billion libraries. A few highlights:

The Warren Anatomical Museum at Countway Library - The collection includes historical medical instruments, strange physical specimens (skeletons of people with spinal disorders, and so on), and the skull of Phineas Gage. Oh, and the tamping iron that blasted through it as well.
Harvard-Yenching Library - Went here to grab a bunch of origami books once, and felt like I was in China.
Widener Library The grandaddy of all Harvard libraries. Worth checking out the Gutenberg Bible (one of five perfect copies in the US), doing battle with the multiple classification systems (Harvard has a system that predates the LOC’s), and trying to discover the incredibly well-concealed Stacks Reading Room.
Pusey Library - Part of Widener, technically, and best known for not-so-clever double entendres (“Rain Drenches Pusey Stacks”]). I’m personally most fond of the peculiar smell in the tunnel between Widener and Pusey, the same as some TMNT scratch + sniff pizzas I had growing up.
Lamont Library - The most popular undergraduate library, with its cafe and study spaces. But also home to the very cool Woodberry Poetry room and the Farnsworth Collection of travel books and pop lit.
Mental Health Sciences Library - Not particularly noteworthy in and of itself, but I had to head out here once to make a copy of an elusive journal article on fMRI, and McLean is unbelievable - an old mansion, and a few newer buildings sitting atop a hill in Belmont, that have this wild turn-of-the-century asylum feel (like Hitchcock’s Spellbound)
Fung Library - Located in CGIS North, totally feels like the inside of a spaceship.
Harvard Film Archive - Daily screenings, open to the public. Tons of director visits. Haven’t checked out the collection on my own though (although I have been to the rather hip Film Studies Library in the VES part of Sever).

And this is just the tip of the iceberg…. I haven’t mentioned the 12 house libraries (very cool), the charming-but-not-that-interesting tiny science libraries (and the oh-so-depressing Cabot Library), the beautiful Law School Library, or the countless other libraries I’ve never been to…