john harvard’s journal

A key point of the report is that infor- Yesterday’s News mation systems will need to be standard- ized and improved. When the online From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine HOLLIS circulation system was developed in the late 1980s, data requirements were 1935 The Business School announc- of ’64 as the “wartime ‘baby bulge’ [ap- set by individual libraries, so that data es 10 new courses on the business as- pears] a year ahead of schedule.” [Appli- are “not consistent across the collection,” pects of public administration for stu- cations for the class of 2013 hit 29,112.] says Lamberth. “That is an area that will dents who wish to prepare themselves * * * have to be addressed, to allow us to more for public service. The first women to complete a formal fully participate in outside consortial en- WHRB comp begin their stints on the air. deavors such as Borrow Direct,” the inter­ 1950 The Massachusetts Legisla- library loan system used by the rest of the ture again considers a bill to investigate 1965 The Data and Mailing Services, a Ivy League. John G. Palfrey VII, a professor Communist sympathizers on college computer facility for handling biographical and Ess Librarian at Harvard Law School, campuses. President Conant assures and statistical data on 161,000 alumni, fac- who chaired the task force’s technology state lawmakers that Harvard is anti- ulty and staff members, and students, has working group, says that new technolo- Communist and has nothing to hide; he opened, compressing information once gies “need to become a driver of collabora- deems the investigation unnecessary be- stored on many separate stencils onto tion across the University’s many librar- cause it “is likely to expose loyal citizens 16,800 feet of magnetic tape. ies and beyond,” rather than an inhibitor to unfair insinuations and thus to cause of working together. Harvard’s libraries, serious injustice.” 1970 In his annual report, President he says, faced with an historic moment of * * * Nathan M. Pusey laments “a dismal year,” transformation, can serve researchers ev- Dunster House residents lament their plagued by student uprisings of “would- erywhere “more effectively and efficient- reputation as the “neglected child of be revolutionaries” as well as financial ly than we do today if we play our cards Harvard,” assuring the Bulletin that they constraints; for the first time in many right with respect to technology integra- are no farther from the Yard than some years, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences tion and development.” other Houses, though they do “lie a runs a deficit, and federal support to Collaborations that don’t require inte- goodly distance away from the pinball Harvard decreases by $200,000. gration have begun already: for example, machines and hamburger heavens of China’s national library is paying to digi- Harvard Square.” 1980 President Derek C. Bok calls tize some of the rarest holdings in the student careerism “a passing phase,” pre- Harvard Yenching Library. And Harvard is 1960 The Admissions Office blanch- dicting “a leveling in the number of future reportedly far along in talks with MIT (al- es at the prospect of 5,000 ap- applicants to Harvard—though still far ready a Harvard Depository client) on how plicants to the more than there are places the two institutions’ libraries could work class available—and less anxiety together. (Cornell and Columbia’s librar- over becoming a doc- ies have announced a Mellon Foundation- tor or lawyer.” funded plan to try sharing collections and the cost of digitization, for example. But collection-sharing will require improve- ments to Harvard’s library data systems.) More students are using the libraries than ever, says Darnton, and not just from their rooms via computer: “their bodies are also present in the buildings.” The future is digital, he says—“That much we know. Meanwhile, we occupy what I refer to as a transitional phase… in which printed works and digital works must coexist and be mutually reinforcing. The digital future is ex- hilarating, and will enable us to open up the Harvard libraries and share our in- tellectual wealth. Part of me says, ‘Eureka!’ because it is the most exciting thing imag- inable for a library. But then the other side of me crashes into a reality determined by the budget,” and the “distastrous last year” when acquisitions fell “precipitously.”

Illustration by Mark Steele