Can you imagine what 50 miles of bookshelves looks like? If you visit the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University, you can see this vast array of more than 3 million books.

The library opened in 1915 in honor of Harry Elkins Widener, a 1907 Harvard graduate who lost his life aboard the Titanic. Widener’s mother, Eleanor Elkins Widener, wanted to create the library as a memorial to her son, who was an “enthusiastic young bibliophile.”

The shelves hold an extensive collection of literature and history books, with an emphasis on linguistics, classical and modern languages, folklore, bibliography, economics, philosophy, and psychology. The library also holds foreign works in more than 100 languages.