Harvard University Library: Open Collections Program

About the Open Collections Program

Through Harvard's Open Collections Program (OCP), the University advances teaching and learning on historical topics of great relevance by providing online access to historical resources from Harvard's renowned libraries, archives, and museums. OCP's highly specialized “open collections” are developed through careful collaborations among Harvard's distinguished faculty, librarians, and curators.

The goal of the Open Collections Program is to offer a new model for digital collections that will benefit students and teachers around the world.

Three open collections have been launched since 2004: Women Working, 1800-1930, Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930, and Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics. Two additional collections are under development now: the Islamic Heritage Project, and Organizing Our World: Sponsored Exploration and Scientific Discovery in the Modern Age.

Support for the Open Collections Program

Harvard University established the Open Collections Program in 2002, with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The program has received subsequent support from Arcadia and from Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.

Related Programs at Harvard University

Harvard-Google Project
Google is digitizing a significant number of Harvard's library books that are not under copyright restriction and making them available to Internet users through Google Book Search.

A Selection of Web-Accessible Collections

Women Working, 1800-1930
This collection explores women's roles in the US economy between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, conditions in the home, costs of living, recreation, health and hygiene, conduct of life, policies and regulations governing the workplace, and social issues are all well documented by original source material.

Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other historical materials that document voluntary immigration to the United States from the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 to the Great Depression.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
This collection contributes to the understanding of the global, social–history, and public–policy implications of diseases and offers important historical perspectives on the science and the public policy of epidemiology today.

Islamic Heritage Project
The Harvard University Library is producing more than 100,000 digital images to open access to selected Islamic materials from Harvard's historical collections of manuscripts and published works. Available Winter 2009.

Harvard Libraries / Harvard University Library / Harvard Home / OCP Staff