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Widener Library is named after Harry Elkins Widener (Harvard class of 1907), a book collector and victim of the Titanic disaster whose mother, Eleanor Elkins, made a $3.5 million donation to Harvard University to build a library named after him. There is an untrue urban myth at Harvard that in order to prevent what befell Widener from happening to another student, all students of Harvard College are required to prove that they can swim before they are allowed to graduate. While Harvard did require a swimming test of students in the 1920s, it had nothing to do with Widener, and Harvard no longer administers a swimming test for students.
From 2003- 2004, the front entrance of Widener Library underwent extensive renovation.
According to the fictional Cthulhu mythos of H. P. Lovecraft, Widener Library houses one of the few existing copies of the Necronomicon in the world, hidden somewhere among its endless stacks.