The Americas, Europe, and Oceania Division (AEOD) of the Harvard College Library is focused on support for teaching and research in the general social sciences and humanities. The AEOD employs innovative and forward-thinking workflows in the building of collections support for research and teaching in the general social sciences and humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.
General collections focus
In keeping with the geographical division of coverage at Widener Library, the AEOD collects humanities and social sciences material in all formats published in the following areas: North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and Ireland; Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand; Western and Northern European nations with Germanic (including Scandinavia) or Romance languages (including Romania, Malta and Iberia); all Slavic and Baltic countries (including Central and Eastern European countries, Russia, and other former Soviet republics) and some additional European nations (Albania, Finland, and Hungary).
The AEOD collects materials for Lamont Library, including books for pleasure reading in the Farnsworth Room, but does not duplicate the collecting areas of specialized libraries in the Harvard College Library (such as Science, Fine Arts, Music, Theology, and Design) or more broadly in the schools (Law, HKS, Business, Education, Medicine).
Distinctive collections and primary sources
In keeping with the evolving platforms and sources of scholarly output as well as networked primary sources, the AEOD judiciously continues Widener’s tradition in going further to build tightly-focused distinctive collections of primary sources in direct partnership with research and teaching priorities in FAS. This has included, among other things, ephemera and unique books on emerging social and political movements in coverage areas, and LGBTQ documents. 
Learn more about our division members at the People of the AEOD.
AEOD collections:
- English Language Humanities and Social Sciences Collections
- French and Italian Collections
- Germanic Collections
- Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese Collections
- Modern Greek Collection
- Slavic Collections