It is really interesting working in a library in the same geographic region as Harvard, because many of the students think if only they could get into the Harvard library system, all their research needs would be automatically fulfilled. I can sort of understand the mindset, because when I started working in libraries as a graduate student, I was working in a library with a ginormous library collection. So when answering reference questions there, I was usually able to start with the mindset of We probably have this, let’s find it! And if it turned out that we didn’t have it it wasn’t too hard to get it. When I got my first job out of library school, I was working at another state university library with a collection less than half the size of the U of I. So knowing more about the types of degrees awarded by the University (are we buying stuff to support a graduate program in x discipline) became part of my automatic mental calculations when answering a question about really specific discipline based research, and I’d be more likely to start showing someone all of the interlibrary loan options quickly if I already know that the local library collection was weak in a particular area. This became magnified yet again when I took my current job, because the library collection is even smaller although we do have the type of access to databases and electronic resources that you’d expect to find in a much much larger library. Things are certainly nicer when you have vast research resources at your disposal, but having a library system spread out all over a campus also creates some logistical problems like having to walk a mile to get to a particular branch library.

When you are in the same geographic area as Harvard and you are Not Harvard, the giant spector of the Harvard Library looms large.

I once had a visiting parent of a student come up to the reference desk and demand to know why my library didn’t have the textbook that he authored because the Harvard Business School library had it. Clearly we we falling down on our job if we didn’t duplicate Harvard’s collection. I explained a bit about the libraries collection development policy and how we really don’t routinely buy textbooks, although sometimes we will if a professor has requested it and wants to have a copy on reserve for students. “But this is a core textbook that would be useful outside of a class, and Harvard has it.”

Things I thought but did not say:

1) Dude, we don’t have a business program. Perhaps if it was so important to you that your child attend a school that stocks your textbook, you could have upped the odds by encouraging her to apply to a school that actually offers an MBA.

2) Do you have any idea how much money the Harvard Business School probably has to give their library enough money to buy all the books they need?

I ended up encouraging him to contact the collection development department if he felt it was a horrible oversight that the libray didn’t have his book.

One day I was looking over the shoulder of a student who was filling out an ILL request form with a weary look on his face, so I asked him how things were going. “Well, some of my articles are here and some of them aren’t. I knew I should have gone to the Harvard Library.”
And I was like, “Well, I’m sure you can go to the Harvard Library, but whether or not they’ll let you in the library is another question.” And I reassured the student that Interlibrary Loan is often very fast.

I wonder sometimes if students think getting into the Harvard Library system means they will attain some sort of library nirvana, where researchers recline on down-filled cushions while being attended to by celestial library maidens who feed patrons grapes and prepare detailed annotated bibliographies and photocopies of articles that are bound in glowing gold binders and handed to waiting researchers along with a complimentary diamond studded robot research paper stenographer.