June 2011 Archives

June 7, 2011

New Access Policy for Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library

A current Yale ID (with a prox chip) is required to enter the Haas Family Arts Library during all regular business hours. Non-Yale visitors are also welcome and can gain access to the library through the security guard in the Loria Center entrance hall. Visitors must present a photo ID and sign the library’s guestbook, located at the main service desk inside the library.

Posted by Yale University Library on June 7, 2011 11:24 AM

Landmark Gift Establishes Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Yale

Yale University President Richard C. Levin today announced the creation of the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, funded by a gift of $25 million from Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin ’78. The Institute, to be housed on Yale’s West Campus, will unite the vast resources of the University’s museum and library collections with the scientific and technological expertise of Yale’s academic departments to advance conservation science and its practice around the world.

“This extraordinary gift enables a breakthrough in the global practice of conservation and preservation,” Levin said. “Through their philanthropy, Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin have already established themselves among the world’s foremost custodians of cultural resources. I am deeply grateful that their support will allow Yale to combine the resources of its three museums and its library to develop new approaches to conservation and to engage in new international collaborations in research and education.”

The Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage will draw on the personnel and material resources of the University Library, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art and the Office of Digital Assets and Infrastructure. Curators and staff from these institutions will collaborate with faculty from chemistry, engineering, computer science and other departments to work on solving the most pressing conservation challenges.

The Institute will be located on Yale’s West Campus, a 136-acre complex acquired from Bayer Pharmaceuticals in 2007 and a short seven miles west of downtown New Haven. Scott Strobel, Vice President for West Campus Planning and Program Development, noted that the creation of the Institute represents another milestone in the development of the campus. “We already have an extraordinary community of faculty members and staff using the West Campus facilities to address shared conservation needs and to conduct original research within Yale’s collections of books, artifacts and natural specimens,” Strobel said. “The new Institute will build on this community to accelerate dramatically Yale’s mission of conservation, teaching, research and publication.” When fully built out, the West Campus will be home to six interdisciplinary research institutes related to the life sciences in addition to the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.

The Institute’s physical home will be a sustainable, 212,000-square-foot building, architecturally optimized for the preservation of objects. It will provide scholars and students with access to laboratories, offices and world-class facilities for meetings, seminars, training programs and conferences.

The work of the Institute will be supported by two core facilities in conservation and digitization: The conservation core will provide specialized research tools and focus on new technologies and methods to reduce threats common to many objects. The digitization core will apply new technological tools to capture, store, curate and share material in digital form. As it works to meet these basic goals, the Institute will pioneer areas of research and analytical techniques that are at present unknown to the world of conservation.

“We felt that Yale was particularly well-equipped to host this institute,” Peter Baldwin said. “The University shares our deep conviction that new technology will not only help us protect our most valuable cultural assets, but also expand access to those assets for people around the world. We are confident that the work that Yale’s scholars and scientists are already doing within their own collections and at cultural sites across the globe will be quickly applicable for conservationists worldwide.”

Among other projects, the Institute will extend initiatives already under way at Yale to explore the use of nanotechnology to slow the decay of artworks; apply computer technology to create specialized tools to care for ancient mosaics; and use 3-D technology to digitize and study collections. The Institute also aims to build its faculty and staff resources so that it may increasingly offer services of assessment and technical analysis in the field, addressing site conditions and unique preservation issues that threaten the longevity of vital cultural resources in remote environments.

The Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage will be well positioned to disseminate its findings quickly and broadly. The Institute will convene scholars for conferences and meetings to discuss best practices and new findings. Its global outreach will go far beyond local work with visiting scholars. The Institute expects to develop a program of online courses based on its cultural heritage collections. And the University has adopted policies that make digital copies of its collections available to the widest global audience, without limitations.

Yale News Releases are available at http://www.opa.yale.edu

Posted by Yale University Library on June 7, 2011 11:32 AM

June 13, 2011

Two Hundred Years of Medical Education at Yale: New Exhibit at the Medical Library

From a single rented building with five faculty members and no hospital, the Yale University School of Medicine has grown to become a world-famous center for teaching, research, and clinical practice. This Bicentennial exhibit focuses on the history of the Medical School and its teaching mission over the past 200 years.

View the exhibit on your own or come and join us for a tour on Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 12 noon with Toby Appel

Curated by Toby A. Appel, former John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History
On View until September 11, 2011

Posted by Yale University Library on June 13, 2011 12:01 PM

June 14, 2011

Yale and New Haven, Yale and the World: Postcards from the Yale University Library

Yale and New Haven, Yale and the World: Postcards from the Yale University Library Collections.
June 1 – September 5

This exhibit, currently in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library (diagonally opposite the circulation desk), presents a history focusing on Yale's changing role in the New Haven community over the past two centuries, incorporating the local history of Yale into a broader narrative of the University’s involvement in international affairs over the same time period. Drawing on the Library’s numerous collections of historic postcards, the exhibit represents over 30 countries and 310 years of Yale history—from a postcard of Yale’s first cornerstone in Old Saybrook, CT, to a gift of commemorative postcards for President Levin. At once visual and textual, private and public, mass-produced and deeply personal, the postcard offers fascinating inroads to understanding how notions of Yale and the world have changed over time, and what responsibilities lie ahead for Yale in the years to come.

Posted by Yale University Library on June 14, 2011 3:09 PM

June 15, 2011

Yale Library to Receive Kissinger Papers

Yale to Receive Kissinger Papers and Establish the Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy

New Haven, Conn.—President Richard C. Levin today announced that Dr. Henry A. Kissinger will donate his papers to Yale University. The collection, which consists of approximately one million documents and objects covering Dr. Kissinger’s extraordinary life as a diplomat, scholar, teacher, and private citizen, will enhance Yale’s existing strengths as an archival repository for major 20th century American leaders. Yale already holds the papers of renowned former diplomats and alumni Henry Stimson (Class of 1888), Dean Acheson (Class of 1915), and Cyrus Vance (Class of 1939, LAW ’42), as well as those of President Woodrow Wilson’s most influential adviser, “Colonel” Edward House.

To read more: http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8656

Posted by Yale University Library on June 15, 2011 10:39 AM

June 23, 2011

Kline Science Library moves to 140 Prospect Street with the Social Science Library on Monday, June 27

Effective, Monday, June 27, 2011, in preparation for the renovation project that will create the Center for Science and Social Science Information (CSSSI), the staff and services of Kline Science Library will be moving to 140 Prospect Street, Urban Hall, with the Social Science Library.

Kline Science Library will close for the duration of the CSSSI construction project at the end of business (5pm) Friday, June 24, 2011.

We thank you for your patience as we make this transition. We will do our best to provide the same high level of service we have always provided.

CSSSI will open in January 2012.
 

Posted by Yale University Library on June 23, 2011 4:36 PM