Center for Hellenic Studies

Content of the Collection

The Center’s library consists of over 55,000 volumes, of which approximately one-third are periodicals. The library’s coverage includes archaic, classical, Hellenistic and early imperial Greek literature, history, religion, art, archaeology, epigraphy, papyrology, numismatics and philosophy (through Late Antiquity). Collections in Latin Literature and Roman Studies are less complete, but very useful for comparative purposes and interdisciplinary projects.

The library was fortunate in its early years in acquiring the private library of Werner Jaeger and large portions of those of Arthur Darby Nock and Arthur Stanley Pease, all of whom had taught at Harvard University. James H. Oliver of the Johns Hopkins University also bequeathed materials to the Center. As a result, many older editions of texts and rare copies of dissertations are available. Recently, books from the library of Sterling Dow of Harvard University have enriched the archaeology section. The classical papers of I.F. Stone have also been donated to the Center and are available to scholars upon advance request.

Journal and series subscriptions number over 280; many of these go back to the first years of publication and are therefore particularly useful.

Currently about 1,000 books, excluding serials acquired through subscription, are added each year. The purchasing program allows for the acquisition of most important classical titles published by American university presses in the United States, as well as those published in other countries, including England, France, Germany, and Italy. Friends of the library, many of them previous Fellows, are generous in their gifts.

The Center's collection can be searched through Harvard's on-line catalogue via the Internet (http://holliscatalog.harvard.edu ); new titles are listed as soon as they are catalogued. The library provides access to many proprietary databases and online journals. As time goes on, many more resources are becoming available through the Internet.

The Center has access to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, L'Année Philologique and Dyabola via the World Wide Web. Databases on CD-ROM include Greek Documentary Texts and Latin Texts from the Packard Humanities Institute. Perseus is also available.

Reference sets include Pauly’s Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Lexicon des frühgriechischen Epos, Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, to mention just a few.

In common with most research libraries in the United States, the arrangement of the library follows the classification system of the Library of Congress.