Introduction

Geoffrey Chaucer’s (ca.1342–1400) House of Fame is full of incredible images—names carved in ice, Geoffrey clutched in the eagle’s talons—but the one that sticks with us is this: great authors stand on pillars in the goddess Fame’s palace, bearing the reputations of nations and heroes on their shoulders. It is at once impossible to picture (what does a reputation look like?) and impossible to forget. The poet sees Homer, “hy on a piler / Of yren [...] besy for to bere up Troye”; he gazes at Ovid, who “hath ysowen...

In fall 2018, the current editing team of Harvard Library Bulletin began the project of converting the journal from a subscription-based print publication to online and open access. During those golden autumn days, we looked towards a hazy but pleasant future when the project was over and we could turn our attention to collaborating with colleagues to further the work of the journal.... Read more about The Best-Laid Plans: A Letter from the Editors

Relaunching Harvard Library Bulletin (HLB) as an online journal presents us with a paradox. As a publication, it is at once a vestige of earlier eras of academic librarianship and scholarly communication, while, in its online form, it will use new approaches and sensibilities to promoting collections... Read more about Publisher's Note

When we began planning the relaunch of Harvard Library Bulletin as an online, open access publishing portal, we could not have known that the common expectations and opportunities we were addressing would become paramount in Fall 2020.... Read more about The “voice of a distinct community”