March 2016 Archives

This semester, the Sterling Memorial Library Exhibits Corridor features the research of four exceptional Yale students in an exhibit entitled "Student Research at Yale University Library". The selected individuals have made impressive use of the diverse resources available at the library.

David McCullough’s research follows the expeditions of Othniel Charles Marsh, Yale’s first professor of paleontology.  McCullough, a senior at Davenport College, made considerable use of the Othniel Charles Marsh Papers throughout his research process.  Held in the Yale Library’s Manuscripts and Archives, the Papers include Marsh’s correspondences, journals, and scientific notes.  

Mary Jones’s research focuses on the career of record executive Goddard Lieberson, specifically during the 1940s and 50s.  Her display, which features a series of letters exchanged between Lieberson and orchestral conductor Eugene Ormandy, reveals the strong connection between the midcentury recording and performing worlds.  Jones, a PhD candidate in Music History, has made extensive use of the Goddard Lieberson Papers, available through the Yale Library’s Manuscripts and Archives.

Eve Houghton, a junior at Davenport College, highlights excerpts from three annotated books available at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.  Over many years, the volumes’ margins had been annotated by generations of diverse readers, including 19th century Yale undergraduates.  Houghton explores how annotations reveal readers’ emotions and reactions to the texts. Throughout her project, Houghton relied on the Beinecke’s Osborn Collection, which includes a considerable number of early modern annotated books.

The research of John D’Amico, a recent Davenport College graduate, explores how the construction of canals in Japan impacted the development of towns.  He focuses on the Dotonbori canal and its effects on Osaka. Among the many library resources that contributed to D’Amico’s research, the Yale Library’s subscription to every major Japanese newspaper’s backlog proved particularly helpful. 

The Student Research exhibit not only displays the results of the students’ research, but also describes the librarians and resources that particularly impacted the individual projects.  Yale librarians worked closely with these students, providing them with everything from research guidance to life advice.  By revealing the processes of these unique and diverse projects, the exhibit emphasizes the enormity and accessibility of the Yale University Library’s collections.

Written by Hilary Purrington

Before you take off for spring break, please mark your calendar for three upcoming EAL events in April. All will take place in Room 218, Sterling Memorial Library.

Thursday, April 7, 2 PM

The Traditional Wisdom of the Chinese Ancient Calendar 從農曆看中國古代的生存智慧

Presented by Professor Ge Jianxiong 葛劍雄, Institute of Chinese Historical Geography, Fudan University

Friday, April 8, noon

Know before You Go: C.V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley

Presented by Ms. Jianye He, Librarian for the Chinese Collection and Ms. Toshie Marra, Librarian for the Japanese Collection

Friday, April 15, noon

Know before You Go: East Asia Library, Stanford University

Presented by Dr. Jidong Yang, Director

We hope to see many of you there. Have a relaxing spring break!

All are invited to join us on April 5th for the official unveiling of a new portrait in Sterling Memorial Library of Yale’s first women PhDs, awarded in 1894. Celebrate this historic event for graduate coeducation. Yale’s decision to accept women would forever change academia and the course of women’s advancement. The first cohort of women graduates made an indelible mark on American culture as professors, writers, scientists, and activists. The Brooklyn based artist Brenda Zlamany has painted an inspiring portrait of these pioneers which will be on display permanently in the Sterling Memorial Library Nave.

To learn more about the history of graduate coeducation and about the artist’s process of painting the portrait, join us in the Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall from 3:30-4:30.

After the lecture, we will gather for remarks by President Salovey and faculty followed by a reception in the Sterling Memorial Library Nave.

William H. Townsend’s pencil sketches of the Amistad captives portray people full of character, who when robbed of their freedom, fought to regain it.

The 43 captives’ arrival in New Haven in September 1839 caused a sensation. Townspeople lined the streets as the Africans were marched from the Long Wharf to the jail. Colonel Stanton Pendleton, the jailer, charged curiosity seekers a shilling each to view his unusual prisoners. Phrenologists visited the jail to measure the captives’ skulls.

Townsend captured their humanity. His drawings depict distinct individuals: Margru, a young girl, hints at a smile. Kimbo seems suspicious. Pona is handsome. Saby smokes a pipe.

Townsend had difficulty persuading the Africans to sit for him and bribed them with candy, according to an article published in the Yale Library Gazette in January 1935. Read more in this YaleNews article.

The Kelmscott-Goudy Press Legacy at Rochester Institute of Technology

by Amelia Fontanel, Associate Curator, RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection

3pm Lecture in Sterling Memorial Library (SML) lecture hall

4pm Printing Demonstration in The Bibliographical Press, L&B Room, SML

In 1891 a simple iron printing press was made in London and sold to William Morris, the founder of the Arts & Crafts movement. Whereupon this press was employed to produce the legendary book commonly known as The Kelmscott Chaucer, completed in 1896. For over a century since, admirers have sought to pull a print on this press—each perhaps striving to absorb the greatness of its successive proprietors, many of them luminaries in the typographic arts, including the American type designer Frederic W. Goudy.

This Kelmscott handpress is now held at the Cary Collection in Rochester, New York, where it is the centerpiece of a dynamic program for teaching book arts history and practice. Please join us on March 10 at 3:00 pm to hear Amelia Fontanel, associate curator of the Cary's graphic arts collection, as she describes the press’s impressive provenance and detailed restoration. Then join us afterwards at 4:00 pm for keepsake printing at the Yale University Library Bibliographical Press, located in Sterling Memorial Library.

Image: Courtesy of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

In 1891 a simple iron printing press was made in London and sold to William Morris, the founder of the Arts & Crafts movement. Whereupon this press was employed to produce the legendary book commonly known as The Kelmscott Chaucer, completed in 1896. For over a century since, admirers have sought to pull a print on this press—each perhaps striving to absorb the greatness of its successive proprietors, many of them luminaries in the typographic arts, including the American type designer Frederic W. Goudy.

This Kelmscott handpress is now held at the Cary Collection in Rochester, New York, where it is the centerpiece of a dynamic program for teaching book arts history and practice. Please join us on March 10 at 3:00 pm to hear Amelia Fontanel, associate curator of the Cary's graphic arts collection, as she describes the press’s impressive provenance and detailed restoration. Then join us afterwards at 4:00 pm for keepsake printing at the Yale University Library Bibliographical Press, located in Sterling Memorial Library. The talk will be live streamed here.

Image: Courtesy of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

The Yale Elizabethan Club will host a presentation in the Sterling Memorial Library on Tuesday, March 8 at 5:30 pm by Earle Havens, the Nancy H. Hall Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University; and Matthijs Lok, Associate Professor of Modern European History at the European Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam. They will tell the story of translating and editing a rare and little known Dutch newsletter in the Elizabethan Club Collection relating to the triumphant/disastrous adventures of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the Low Countries