ABSTRACT
The Harvard University Library is best described as a confederation of nearly a hundred libraries in an administratively decentralized but centrally coordinated organization. It is the oldest library in the United States and ranks as the largest university library in the world with 10.5 million volumes. Organizationally, the ten libraries of the Harvard College Library, generally referred to as the central collections, together with the departmental and special research libraries of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences make up approximately 70% of the total volume count. The remaining 30% is held by the libraries of other Faculties, namely, the Graduate Schools of Business Administration, Design, Divinity, Education, Government, Law, Medicine, and Public Health. Although these libraries have their own catalogs of holdings, their records are contributed to Harvard’s Union Catalog, which helps to hold together the confederation that forms the Harvard University Library (HUL).
