Building the Harvard Library
Given their knowledge of everything from dusty old tomes to statistical databases, most Harvard librarians are experts on the past and the present. But on the second floor of 90 Mt. Auburn St., a new team of Harvard University Library leaders is focused squarely on the future. A year ago this week, the University announced plans to better align the Harvard Library’s structure with the University’s evolving academic priorities. Soon after, a new governing body, the Harvard Library Board, and an executive director were named. The Harvard Library’s leadership team, however, has only recently taken shape. Led by Executive Director Helen Shenton and Mary Lee Kennedy, senior associate provost for Harvard Library, the group has an ambitious aim: to take a diverse network of libraries that have grown organically over the course of 375 years and bring them together under a single mission and structure. “Right now we’re taking leaps forward on the...