Joshua Lupkin

Joshua Lupkin

Charles Warren Librarian for American History Harvard College Library
Western Languages Division
Joshua Lupkin

Joshua Lupkin’s role at the Harvard Library is to develop the flagship institutional collection of American History and to foster enhanced access to current and emerging sources for historical research by developing collaborative relationships with other institutions. As liaison to the Charles Warren Center, his role involves connecting faculty, fellows, and students to the collections, resources, and services that meet their research and teaching needs. 

Prior to joining the Harvard community in the summer of 2016, Lupkin was Chief Bibliographer for the Humanities at the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library of Tulane University in New Orleans, where he managed university and endowed funds and coordinated collection strategy and analysis across humanities fields. At Tulane he collaborated closely with Special Collections as selector for rare books and served as liaison to multiple departments and programs in arts and languages. In a previous position as humanities research librarian at Southern Methodist University, he supported undergraduate and doctoral programs in American History. 

Lupkin has contributed to peer-reviewed publications and conferences on subjects including the administration of e-book policies in academic libraries, alternative publications and popular culture in special collections, and methods of collecting emerging media formats. He is working to publish chapters from his dissertation on the history of taxicabs and public space in early-20th-century New York and Chicago, and planning to build collecting initiatives at Widener relating to primary sources about water and water rights in North America as well as prisons.

Lupkin received his MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a doctorate in history from Columbia, and a B.A. in history with departmental honors from the University of Chicago.