The Harvard University Library System comprises over 70 individual libraries and over 15 million volumes.

This makes it the largest academic library in the United States, and the fourth among the five "mega-libraries" of the world (after the Library of Congress, the British Library, and the French Bibliothèque nationale, but ahead of the New York Public Library).

Members of the SEAS community have access to the Gordon McKay Library (located on the third floor of Piece Hall) as well as to the entire Harvard library system.

To promote open scholarship and access to research papers, in 2008 the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously approved a policy stating that faculty members grant to Harvard permission to make their articles freely available to the public.

The effort was led by SEAS's Stuart Shieber, James O. Welch, Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science.

Harvard is the first U.S. university to explicitly establish an open access policy for the publications of its faculty.

Gordon McKay Library

The Gordon McKay Library provides information resources and services to support faculty research, graduate and undergraduate level instruction in SEAS.

The Library is also home to the Blue Hill Observatory Collection (works in materials in atmospheric and earth sciences, climatology, geophysics, meteorology, and oceanography).

The McKay and Blue Hill collection consists of 123,045 volumes and 624 currently received journals.

The Library also maintains collections of SEAS publications, Ph.D. theses and undergraduate theses in applied mathematics, computer science and engineering science.

Standard (term-time) library hours are: Monday - Thursday 9am - 10pm; Friday 9am - 6pm; Saturday 10am - 6pm; and Sunday 12pm - 6pm. Summer hours are: Monday - Friday: 9 AM - 5 PM; Saturday & Sunday: Closed.

Harvard Libraries

The Harvard Libraries web site is an online gateway to the extraordinary library resources of Harvard University and serves as an important research tool for Harvard's current students, faculty, staff, and researchers who hold Harvard IDs and PINs.

The site also provides practical information on each of the more than 70 libraries that form the Harvard system. Visitors and guests should consult the Library's Frequently Asked Questions before navigating the site.

Office for Scholarly Communication

The Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) formed in 2008 in the context of widespread resolve at Harvard to take more ownership of the scholarly communications process, by capturing and sharing the knowledge created by the faculty and broader Harvard research community.

OSC staff, with the help of numerous student Open Access Fellows, are currently focused on preparations for the public launch of the DASH (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard) repository in mid-2009.

DASH Repository (BETA)

Harvard University Archives

The Harvard University Archives is responsible for the institutional memory of the University, including University records and related historical collections.