As the photographic coordinator, Gold often works with researchers who need photographs for publications or filmmakers looking for the perfect image.

“The requests that I find the most interesting are people who don’t know exactly what they want,” she says.

Here, too, technology has transformed daily life. Catalogers are in the process of digitizing 36,000 of the library’s images. Currently, 17,000 images are available online through Harvard’s Visual Information Access system.

In the nearby reading room, researchers comb through file boxes and folders containing parts of the library’s special manuscript collections.

As Acting Director Jane Knowles explains, the process of securing a collection for the library often involves a considerable amount of wheeling, dealing and cultivation.

“It is a question of developing a relationship,” Knowles says. “Sometime it’s a question of a two or three year discussion.”

And sometimes, the find is serendipitous.

Well-known early 20th century anarchist and social activist Emma Goldman’s papers, for example, were purchased after a researcher mentioned that a collection of Goldman’s work resided in the freezer of a New York delicatessen.

After the collection arrives at the Schlesinger, archivists, librarians and staffers in the library’s manuscript department must “process” the collection by reading its contents and organizing the material.

Manuscript Processor Deborah Richards compares her job to reading someone else’s mail.

For Acting Archivist Kathy Kraft, the job has personal significance. She says it gives her a look behind the scenes of the women’s movement, which she herself participated in.

“I wouldn’t like to work on just any records in general,” Kraft says.

Behind the Scenes

Signs that read “Caution,” “No Smoking” and “Authorized Personnel Only” bar the average visitor from entering the library’s basement rooms, which house many of the library’s prize possessions.

Shea, one of the Schlesinger’s librarians, unlocks the door of one temperature-controlled room, known simply as “Vault 1,” and leads the way to a corner filing cabinet.