Wolbach Library closed permanently on March 22, 2024. For library assistance, please email asklib@fas.harvard.edu.
Project PHaEDRA will continue under the Harvard Plate Stacks and Smithsonian Transcription Center.
Wolbach staff work to promote and amplify the astronomy community’s contemporary and historic work. To this end we have taken on the following efforts.
You can also take a look at our Exhibits! They regularly focus on the history of the institutions and astronomy more broadly.
Roberts, I. (1899). Messier 31.
A project by the Wolbach Library, in collaboration with many partners, to catalog, digitize, transcribe, and enrich the metadata of over 2500 logbooks and notebooks produced by the Women Astronomical Computers and other early Harvard astronomers.
In support of women’s history research, Wolbach Library’s Curator of Women’s History created a bibliography covering major secondary and scholarly works written about women in astronomy, as well as a bibliography listing memoirs written by women in astronomy. The bibliographies are living documents to be updated and maintained by Wolbach Librarians.
A fellowship program designed to help bring a historical perspective to contemporary conversations about race and colonialism in astronomy. These fellows undertake original research while participating in the life of the observatory and acting as a resource for the community.
A digital history project at the Wolbach Library which aims to connect people with resources to help them understand and appreciate different astronomical cultures, as well as meaningfully engage in conversations about how colonialism and racism have been, and continue to be, facets of astronomical pursuits.
