Harvard residence hall restricts access to books in library

From The Boston Globe: Students who have long cherished the small library inside Dunster House, Harvard University’s oldest residence hall, discovered a new feature there this week: two brass bars stretching across nearly every shelf, making the books impossible to peruse. The unannounced change - in effect making the library into a kind of museum of hardbacks - astonished those who revere the musty collection. Dunster officials say the bars are needed as a temporary way to protect the books - some of them highly valuable volumes or irreplaceable first editions signed by authors.