Harvard Libraries
Check out the Harvard Library guide for Summer School Students to learn about the wide array of resources and services available to assist you with your summer studies. You are welcome to send us questions through the Ask a Librarian service.
You are encouraged to use the University’s multimillion-volume library collection, including the electronic resources. You may access the following libraries using your Harvard ID card once your session begins. View the Campus Map to find locations.
Libraries in Harvard Yard
Lamont Library provides most of the materials required for Summer School courses—including readings placed on reserve by faculty—as well as study areas, computers, printers, and books for general reading.
Widener Library, the largest library on campus, contains materials in history, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Houghton Library houses Harvard’s collection of rare books and manuscripts.
Pusey Library holds the University Archives and Map Collection.
Science library
Cabot Science Library serves as a general science library and houses research collections in mathematics and statistics.
Libraries at the Medical, Law, and Business Schools
Summer School students may both access and borrow from the Countway Library at the Medical School. Students may access but not borrow from the Baker Library at the Business School. Students may consult the collections of the Harvard Law School Library but may not borrow.
Have a question? Ask a Librarian
Students are invited to use the online research tool Ask a Librarian. Questions on a range of topics are answered by members of the Harvard library staff, usually within one business day.
Harvard Museums
Enrich your summer experience by exploring the collections, exhibits, and history found inside Harvard’s many art, science, and cultural museums.
Most major Harvard museums are free for you and one guest with a valid Harvard ID card.
- The Harvard Art Museums incorporate, under one roof, the collections of Harvard’s Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler Museums. The galleries include art of many media, from around the world.
- Harvard Museum of Natural History, with its collection of glass flowers, dinosaurs fossils, and rare minerals and gemstones.
- The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where you can explore the history and culture of six continents.
- The Harvard Semitic Museum, with its Near Eastern exhibitions.
- A collection of historic scientific instruments at the Science Center.