December 2016 Archives

“The Play’s the Thing”: 50 Years of Yale Repertory Theatre
January 12-March 31, 2017

In 1966, Robert Brustein, Dean of Yale School of Drama, founded Yale Repertory Theatre, a resident professional company that would serve as the equivalent of a “teaching hospital” for theater artists in training. From the beginning, the company has focused on championing new plays alongside productions of classic works. Fifty years later, after winning a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater and launching numerous world premieres that have gone on to Broadway and theaters around the world, Yale Rep continues to nurture and challenge daring artists, bold choices, and adventurous audiences.

This exhibition features production photographs from Manuscripts and Archives and archival materials from Arts Library Special Collections. It accompanies Yale Rep at 50: Daring Artists, Bold Choices, a selection of more than 70 production photographs spanning the company’s five-decade history, on view January 10-April 8 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Image: Jarlath Conroy and Paul Giamatti in Hamlet, 2013. Photograph by Joan Marcus for Yale Repertory Theatre.

What does digital humanities research look like at Yale? See YaleNews's recent article for projects involving the reconstruction of Depression-era film strips, topic models of the Slavic Review journal, a digital archive of buildings in New Haven, and more.

Happy Holidays from the Yale University Library! Safe travels over the break! Check opening times for all of Yale's libraries here.

Fortunoff-DHLab Postdoctoral Associate

The Yale Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (FVAHT) and Digital Humanities Lab are excited to invite applications for a joint Postdoctoral Associate position for the 2017-2018 academic year. In this position, the Postdoctoral Associate will pursue independent digital humanities research and experiment with tools to explore, analyze, and visualize the Fortunoff Archive.

The Postdoctoral Associate will have a dedicated workspace in the DHLab in Sterling Memorial Library; the opportunity to collaborate with technical staff, including a DH Developer and UX Designer; and a budget for computing equipment, professional development, and relocation expenses. The Postdoctoral Associate's primary responsibility will be to his or her own research project. The Fortunoff-DHLab Postdoctoral Associate will work alongside two additional Postdoctoral Associates in the lab.

About the Fortunoff Archive

With more than 4,400 testimonies—over 10,000 hours of videotape—the Fortunoff Archive includes first-hand experiences of the Nazi persecutions, including individuals who had been in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. Testimonies are recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and they range in length from one-half hour to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).

Each testimony is represented by a bibliographic record with an extensive summary and LC subject headings that reflect the survivor’s experiences, the places and camps at which they were located, individuals of historical importance they encountered, and specific subject and thematic elements of their life story. In addition to bibliographic records, each testimony is accompanied by a timecoded index that is contains a summary of the testimony narrative. These indexes are all in English. While transcripts do not currently exist for the collection, the Fortunoff-DHLab Postdoctoral Associate would be provided with a budget to create transcripts for portions of the collection, if necessary for their project.

For more information and to apply, please visit our Postdoctoral Associates page. Applications are due by 5:00pm on February 20, 2017.

The Arts Library will have puzzles and coloring books available at the desk for students to borrow throughout Reading Week. We are also offering a drop-in meditation session from 8-9 pm on Monday, December 12, and a visit from Louie the therapy dog from noon to 2 pm on Tuesday, December 13. 

For details and more Reading Week activities across the library, check the full calendar of events.

The Arts Library will be open extended hours from Sunday, December 11 through Tuesday, December 20. Happy studying!

The 2015-16 Annual Report issue of Nota Bene:News from the Yale Library is now available online, featuring news from the last fiscal year. Nota Bene is published during the academic year to acquaint the Yale community and others with the resources of the Yale Library.

Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) will undergo a major renovation to its public spaces during 2017. While the renovation is in progress all public services will be temporarily relocated to the Franke Room in Sterling Memorial Library (SML). The Franke Room is immediately to your left as you enter the SML Nave through the main (High Street) entrance.

While MSSA relocates their public service operations to the Franke Room, the department will be completely closed to in-person researchers and remote reference requests from Monday, December 12, 2016, through Monday, January 16, 2017. The services affected by this brief closure include: reading room use and access to collection materials, in-person and remote reference work, records requests from Yale offices, ILL lending and return, and Special Collections Transit Hub services through MSSA.

Public services will reopen in the Franke Room at 8:30am on Tuesday, January 17, 2017, and will remain open in that location during our normal hours of operation until the completion of the renovation work, currently anticipated to be November, 2017. If you have questions relating to this closure please contact beinecke.library@yale.edu, or call 203-432-1735.

The renovation of Manuscripts and Archives will revitalize a beautiful space within Sterling Memorial Library, provide for better stewardship of materials through environmental control and security upgrades, and enhance the researcher experience with improved lighting, reduced noise, and improved consultation space. The project will also transform the former Gutenberg Chapel, originally the purpose-built home in Sterling Memorial Library for Yale’s Gutenberg Bible, into a secure classroom to meet increasing faculty demand for teaching with Manuscripts and Archives collections. The non-functional stone fireplace in the future classroom will be lifted to create a door into the Linonia & Brothers Reading Room (L&B)

RECHARGE during Reading Week with a series of events for students at the Yale University Library. From December 9-15, students are invited to join us for drop in meditation sessions, Zumba, chair massages, therapy dog visits, pizza, games, donuts, healthy snacks, puzzles, coloring and more!

There is also a "Long Night Against Procrastination" event! Study for your final exams, write your papers and work on your presentations in this one night event designed for maximum productivity. Bring yourselves and your to-do list. We'll provide a quiet space, snacks, coffee, short planned breaks for stress relief and other library treats.

Check the library calendar for the full list of reading week events and for all the details.  We look forward to seeing you there and spread the word!