Lamont Library, in the southeast corner of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, houses the

Harvard Library Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...

's primary undergraduate collection in humanities and social sciences. It was the first library in the United States specifically planned to serve undergraduates. Women (that is,

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

students) were admitted beginning in 1967.

Overview

Lamont was built as part of a program to address dwindling

stack Stack may refer to: Places * Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group * Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland People * Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...

space, and patron overcrowding, at Widener Library.

Keyes D. Metcalf Keyes DeWitt Metcalf (April 13, 1889 – November 3, 1983) was an American librarian. He has been identified as one of the 100 most important leaders in librarianship by the journal '' American Libraries''. In a career spanning over 75 years, he ...

, Librarian of Harvard College and Director of the Harvard University Library from 1937 to 1955, planned the building with Boston architect Henry R. Shepley. Opened in 1949, it is named for its principal donor, Harvard alumnus

Thomas W. Lamont Thomas William Lamont Jr. (September 30, 1870 – February 2, 1948) was an American banker. Early life Lamont was born in Claverack, New York. His parents were Thomas Lamont, a Methodist minister, and Caroline Deuel Jayne. Since his father was ...

. Lamont's general collection of 200,000 volumes began with transfers from Widener, the Boylston Hall reserve-book collections, and the Harvard Union Reading Room. A modified Dewey classification scheme was used, and the main spaces included capacious open-shelf alcoves for browsing, study, and research. The Library of Congress Classification system was adopted in the 1970s. After

Littauer Library Littauer and Litauer are German language surnames. The word means "a Lithuanian". The surnames may refer to: * Florence Littauer (1928–2020), Christian writer and motivational speaker * Lucius Littauer (1859–1944), politician, businessman, an ...

closed in 2007, Lamont became the home library for HCL's former Social Sciences Program. Four units of the Social Sciences ProgramDocuments Services, Microform Services, Numeric Data Services, and Environmental Information Serviceswere combined with Lamont Reference Services. Lamont houses the College Library's major research collections in government documents and microform collections across all disciplines.

References

External links

Lamont Library
{{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1949 University and college academic libraries in the United States Harvard University buildings Libraries in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Lamont family Harvard Library