May 2011 Archives

May 4, 2011

150 Years of Whitney Family History Donated to Yale

The department of Manuscripts and Archives in the Yale University Library is pleased to announce that it has received the papers of the John Hay Whitney and Betsey Cushing Whitney family, the records of the John Hay Whitney Foundation, and the records of Greentree Stud & Stable. Donated to Yale by the Greentree Foundation, a nonprofit organization created by the Whitney family in 1982 and dedicated to peace, human rights and international cooperation, the papers document the personal, family, and professional lives of a prominent American family with significant ties to Yale University.

Among his many accomplishments, John Hay Whitney (1904-1982, Yale Class of 1926, Fellow of the Yale Corporation 1955-1973) was one of the country’s first venture capitalists, an ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Eisenhower administration, and publisher of the New York Herald Tribune. Betsey Cushing Whitney (1908-1998) was a noted philanthropist in the fields of medicine, education, and the arts; a member of the Defense Advisory Committee advocating policies for American servicewomen in the 1950s; and the primary force behind the establishment of the Greentree Foundation. Together, they created one of the most significant fine art collections in American history and subsequently donated many works to the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art. The Whitney family papers also include materials about John Hay Whitney’s ancestors including his mother, Helen Hay Whitney (1876-1944), a distinguished poet and writer, and his grandfather, John M. Hay (1838-1905), author, statesman and assistant secretary to President Abraham Lincoln. Materials from Betsey Cushing Whitney’s family, including her father Dr. Harvey Cushing (1869-1939), pioneer neurosurgeon, and her mother Kate Crowell Cushing are also included.

The family papers consist of extensive correspondence, diaries, writings, photographs, scrapbooks, financial files, business and art collection management records. The John Hay Whitney Foundation records include financial and program files that document the Foundation’s innovative educational programs in the humanities and social sciences. The Greentree Stud & Stable records include legal and financial files and photographs that chronicle the Stable’s success in horse breeding and racing. Taken together, these collections provide researchers with a robust picture of the Whitney family’s many important contributions.

“We have long been interested in preserving the significant history that is documented in the papers of the Whitney Family,” said Christine Weideman, Director of Manuscripts and Archives. “We are delighted and grateful that the Foundation has made it possible for us to do so.”

The donation is the latest example of the Whitney family’s generous support of Yale. The family funded the building of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium in memory of Payne Whitney. The Yale Medical Library’s historical collection began with a donation by Dr. Harvey Cushing (Yale Class of 1891). A donation by John Hay Whitney helped Yale to establish the Whitney Humanities Center. A gift from Betsey Cushing Whitney made possible the renovation and expansion of the Medical Library which was then renamed the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library.

Given the Whitney family’s longstanding relationship with Yale, both the Greentree Foundation and the department of Manuscripts and Archives are pleased that the papers will be preserved by the University and made available to the research community.

For more information about the records, contact Caro Pinto, Project Archivist, in Manuscripts and Archives at 203-436-8405 or caro.pinto@yale.edu.

Posted by Yale University Library on May 4, 2011 12:38 PM

May 11, 2011

Digital Images of Yale’s Vast Cultural Collections Now Available for Free

New Haven, Conn.— Scholars, artists and other individuals around the world will enjoy free access to online images of millions of objects housed in Yale’s museums, archives, and libraries thanks to a new “Open Access” policy that the University announced today. Yale is the first Ivy League university to make its collections accessible in this fashion, and already more than 250,000 images are available through a newly developed collective catalog: http://TinyURL.com/4x2x2f3

To read the rest of the story: http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8544

Posted by Yale University Library on May 11, 2011 1:03 PM

May 13, 2011

Spring 2011 issue of Nota Bene now available online

Nota Bene is published during the academic year to acquaint the Yale community and beyond, with the resources of the Yale libraries. Each issue features articles on new collections and acquisitions, public programs, services to students and scholars, and special events and exhibits. Nota Bene transitioned to an electronic publication in Spring 2010. For the Spring 2011 Issue, please click here:
http://www.library.yale.edu/notabene/

Posted by Yale University Library on May 13, 2011 4:08 PM

May 25, 2011

New Middle Eastern Resources available for Yale

The Yale University Library has been able to gain licensed access for several key and much-desired e-resources related to study of the Middle East. These can be found in both Metalib and Orbis. The resources are:

* Bibliography of Arabic Books Online (BABO) - The Bibliography of Arabic Books Online (BABO) aims to become a comprehensive bibliographic database containing information about virtually all books published in Arabic before 1960, and then continuing up to the present. BABO contains over 60,000 bibliographical records from the National Library in Egypt, the British Library and the Library of Congress. Also data from catalogs of other participating national and research libraries of Europe, America and the Arab world, will be included in this unique bibliographical database. BABO will include Name Authority Files (NAFs) which list all the spellings variants of authors’ names found in the database. This will be an invaluable finding aid for end-users of BABO, and a practical reference for librarians cataloguing Arabic titles. In the future the spellings found in The Encyclopaedia of Islam will also be added. BABO will ultimately contain over 80,000 records and almost 35,000 unique name records. The resource is searchable in English, transliterated Arabic, and in Arabic script.

* Encyclopaedia Islamica Online - The Encyclopaedia Islamica is a projected 16-volume publication, consisting of an abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dā’irat al-Ma’ārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. In addition to providing entries on important themes, subjects and personages in Islam generally, it offers the western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shi’i Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition. New content will be added every year in alphabetical order. In 2008 the work started with the "A" and is expected to finish in 2023.

* Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics - The EALL Online comprehensively covers all aspects of Arabic languages and linguistics. It is interdisciplinary in scope and represents different schools and approaches to be as objective and versatile as possible. The online edition contains all content of the print edition and new content will be added on a regular basis as of 2010. New articles will be elaborations or updates of themes already discussed in the EALL, or will be new entries that are relevant to the field. The editorship of the dynamic online edition will be in the hands of two new general editors and a largely renewed editorial board.

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In addition, we've been granted, by the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, a year of free access to 24 Iranian movies based around the theme "Understanding Persian Culture Through Film." In fact, the grant is also sponsored by NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) and AsiaPacificFilms.com. Each film includes a video introduction by a scholar who will discuss the film's cultural and historical significance. There are also essays, guides, interviews, and a bibliography. This can be a unique opportunity to learn more about the culture of this important country.

Posted by Yale University Library on May 25, 2011 3:59 PM