September 2013 Archives

September 3, 2013

University Librarian Susan Gibbons interviewed by the Washington Post

University Librarian Susan Gibbons is interviewed as part of this Washington Post article about changes in libraries as the world grows more digital. ...."It doesn’t have to be a dichotomy of physical and digital. In the ideal library of the future, it’s all weaving together.” More at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/therootdc/at-library-of-congress-changes-are-afoot-in-technology-as-well-as-in-physical-space/2013/08/29/57fc033a-0f66-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 3, 2013 1:30 PM

Yale literary festival to fete nine winners of inaugural $150,000 prize

Many writers dream of having the financial independence to focus exclusively on their craft. For nine talented writers, that dream will become reality when they converge at Yale to receive the inaugural Donald Windham — Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes, which include over $1 million in unrestricted funds to support the authors’ writing.

The honorees, originally announced in March, are: in fiction — James Salter, Zoë Wicomb, and Tom McCarthy; in drama — Naomi Wallace, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Tarell Alvin McCraney, a Yale School of Drama graduate; and in non-fiction — Jonny Steinberg, Adina Hoffman, and Jeremy Scahill.

Yale President Peter Salovey will confer the awards, which include a citation and an unrestricted grant of $150,000, during a ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 5 p.m. in Sprague Hall, 98 Wall St. The event is free and open to the public. The ceremony also kicks off the inaugural Windham Campbell Festival, to take place Sept. 10-13.

“We enthusiastically welcome this extraordinary selection of writers to campus to interact with Yale students and faculty, high school students, and the local community,” said Salovey.

The festival will celebrate the prizewinners’ work, and the writers will participate in a broad range of public events, such as master classes, talks, readings, and master’s teas.

“We hope to make this annual festival an event that everyone on campus and in the community looks forward to,” said Michael Kelleher, director of the program. “Meeting and mingling with these great writers is a wonderful way to usher in the school year.”

In conjunction with the festival, the Yale School of Drama will host daily master classes in playwriting at the Iseman Theater. These classes will include a staged reading from the work of that day’s featured playwright, followed by a “Talkback” with the writer and director.

“The School of Drama is delighted to be hosting three extraordinary playwrights’ master classes,” said James Bundy, dean of the Yale School of Drama, “giving not only School of Drama students, but also the wider community, an opportunity to hear selections from their work, as read by some of their key collaborators.”

Playwrights McCraney, Wallace, and Guirgis; journalists Scahill and Steinberg; and fiction writer Wicomb will take part in a panel discussion moderated by students at New Haven's Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School on Sept. 11. The award-winning writers will revisit the school on Sept. 13 to participate in workshops for aspiring writers.

Festival highlights include:

A group reading by all prizewinners at the Yale University Art Galler
A screening of “Dirty Wars,” based on the book of the same name by Scahill, who will introduce the film and answer audience questions
Salter’s only solo public event: a master’s tea at Jonathan Edwards College
“Writing After Apartheid,” a conversation with Steinberg and Wicomb
“Novelists and the Avant Garde,” a conversation with McCarthy
“Writing out of the Archive,” a conversation with Hoffman, Steinberg, and Scahill
The full schedule of events is available at: http://windhamcampbell.org/events/september-10-2013

Books by the prizewinners will be on display at the Yale Bookstore, which will host two book signings.

The Windham Campbell Literature Prizes honor literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. The award is administered by the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, where The Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell Collections are housed. The Beinecke also sponsors the Eugene O’Neill playwriting program at Co-Op High School.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 3, 2013 4:25 PM

September 5, 2013

Yale Day of Data – Opening remarks by Provost Ben Polak, followed by Faculty & Administrator Panels

Yale Day of Data is a day-long event on September 20th (8:30am-7:00pm) that brings researchers together across the sciences and social sciences. It will draw from the experiences of faculty and administrators to explore the common themes and intersections linking data-intensive sciences. Challenges posed by the ever-increasing complexity of data, increased expectations from funders, and heightened attention to data as a research product, will be addressed.

Following opening remarks by Provost Ben Polak, there will be three panels of faculty who will discuss the relationship with their research and data. Represented on the administrator panel will be Susan Gibbons (University Librarian), Len Peters (University Chief Information Officer), Carolyn Slayman (Deputy Dean, Academic and Scientific Affairs), and James Antony (Associate Provost), all of whom will provide perspectives on data at Yale. A short poster session will provide an opportunity for research groups to showcase interesting and innovative ways they are using and/or managing data within their labs. Full details of the day's schedule and registration information can be found at: http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/dayofdata/

This event is brought to you by Yale University Library, Yale ITS, Center for Science & Social Science Information, Institution for Social & Policy Studies, Science & Engineering Chairs Council, Office of the Provost and the Department of Computer Science.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 5, 2013 12:07 PM

Get it @ Yale!

The Yale University Library offers several services to help you "get" material from its print collections, and from print collections at libraries around the world, including through Borrow Direct, Interlibrary Loan & Scan and Deliver. "Get It @ Yale" here: http://guides.library.yale.edu/getit

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 5, 2013 4:32 PM | Permalink

September 6, 2013

Freshman Library Reception, September 17th, 4pm!

Meet your Personal Librarian at the Library’s Freshman Reception!

University Librarian Susan Gibbons and the Personal Librarians for Yale College cordially invite members of the Yale Class of 2017 to a reception at the Beinecke Library. Freshmen will meet their Personal Librarians and learn about the resources available for their academic work.

Tuesday, September 17th, 4-5:30pm
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Refreshments provided.
 

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 6, 2013 5:46 PM

September 18, 2013

The Tale of the Japanese Folding Screens: A Journey from Japan to Yale (and Back)

Thursday, September 19, 4:00 pm
International Room in Sterling Memorial Library

All are welcome to come and hear the fascinating story of the "Harimaze" folding screens. Housed for much of the last century in the Beinecke as part of the Yale Association of Japan (YAJ) collection, the "Harimaze" includes 27 documents, ranging in date from the early 12th to the mid-18th centuries, which were pasted together on two standing screens. Although at the time this seemed a good idea for transportation and exhibition purposes, the preservation of the documents has remained a concern while attached to the screens.

As a result, the screens have been the focus of a major two-year conservation project undertaken for Yale by the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo, where the screens were first assembled in the 1930s. The project involved removing each fragile document for cleaning, repair of insect damage and other wear, and re-backing with hand-made papers, which were specially chosen or custom-made and sized for each document. The documents - including decrees issued by the shogunate, letters and petitions related to the business of the great temples of Nara, and other records from Japan's medieval and early modern periods – were returned to Yale in last August and will now be housed separately to protect them from abrasion they experienced while in screen format.

Presenters:
Ellen Hammond, Director, International Collections & Research Support; Head, East Asia Library
Haruko Nakamura, Librarian for Japanese Studies
Daniel Botsman, Professor; Chair, Council on East Asian Studies

The screens were first displayed in December 1934 in a public exhibition in Sterling Memorial Library soon after the collection was donated. There will be display of a few documents on September 19.

There is also a brief slideshow of the story available here:
http://news.yale.edu/photos/homecoming-harimaze-bu-documents-exemplifies-yale-s-historical-ties-japan

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 18, 2013 10:30 AM

September 19, 2013

Time and Place: Books by Bea Nettles

Monday, September 23, 2013 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Sterling Memorial Library (SML), International Room
120 High St., New Haven, CT 06511

Bea Nettles, Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is a book artist who has been exhibiting and publishing her autobiographical works since 1970. The focus of this forum is her use of photography's unique abilities to reveal the passage of time and a sense of place. She will share several book projects that deal with these themes including Turning 50, Seasonal Turns, Stonecipher, Return Trips and Place, which was recently purchased by Yale's Art Library.
For more information about the artist, see Bea Nettles' website at: http://www.beanettles.com/folio/Recent_Books/PLACE.html

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 19, 2013 1:15 PM

September 20, 2013

From Peru to Paree: A Cole Porter Jubilee, Opening Lecture Friday 18th, 3pm

Exhibit will be on view from October 18 – January 31
Memorabilia Room, Sterling Memorial Library

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Cole Porter’s graduation from Yale in 1913, the Yale Music Library are offering an exhibition of his life and work. Among Yale’s most notable musical alumni, Porter (1891-1964) is recognized as one the greatest composers for Broadway and Hollywood during the golden years. Only two – Porter and Irving Berlin – wrote their own lyrics.

And what beguiling music, such incomparable lyrics! Porter songs enlivened top Broadway musicals from the 1930s through the 1950s, but also survived many now-forgotten shows to enter the American songbook and to be sung by crooners, pop singers, and jazz artists, as well as rock stars, cowboys, and opera divas. Generations have included Porter’s songs in the soundtracks of their lives – enduring standards such as “Night and Day,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “Begin the Beguine,” and “You’re the Top!”

Drawing on the Gilmore Music Library’s extensive Cole Porter Collection, the exhibit presents photographs, letters, scrapbooks, and music manuscripts to illustrate the life and work of this remarkable man. A touchscreen computer table offers film clips and recordings of Porter’s stylish and sophisticated songs.

The exhibit will be on display in the Memorabilia Room of Sterling Memorial Library from October 19 through January 31, 2014. An opening lecture will be held on Friday October 18 at 3:00pm – “Images of Cole Porter: The Man, The Voice” by Professor James Hepokoski, Chair of the Department of Music at Yale. Both the opening talk and the exhibit is free and open to the public.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 20, 2013 1:04 PM

Library Expands its Support for Digital Humanities Projects

Yale University Library has a long history of engagement with digital collection, preservation, and cataloging. With the arrival of a Librarian for Digital Humanities Research, the Library is expanding its services to the Yale scholarly community by offering consultation, training, and support for digital humanities projects directly. One of the motivating factors behind this new set of services is the recognition that the amount of digitized material now available to humanities researchers has spurred interest in complementing traditional scholarly techniques with new forms of analysis.

Read more at: http://guides.library.yale.edu/digitalnews

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 20, 2013 1:21 PM

September 23, 2013

Iconographie Photographique de la Salpêtrière: The Physician and the Hysterical Woman

Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (1876-80), a landmark publication in medical photography, is on view in the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library through November 15th. This collection of texts and photographs represents the female patients of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière hospital and asylum during the years of his tenure as director. The patients, diagnosed primarily with hysteria or epilepsy, were treated at the asylum even as they acted as experimental subjects for Charcot’s development of the hysteria diagnosis. This collection represents a transformative moment in the history of the diagnosis, treatment, and representation of mental illness. The exhibit was organized by Courtney Thompson, doctoral student in the Program in the History of Medicine, and Susan Wheeler, Curator for Prints and Drawings at the Medical Library.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 23, 2013 11:06 AM

September 25, 2013

Fall Issue of Nota Bene: News from the Yale Library, now online

Read about Cole Porter, an archaeological dig, the removal of stained glass windows in the SML nave, fascinating new acquisitions, the preservation of brittle books, and much, much more in the fall issue of Nota Bene!

Nota Bene: News from the Yale Library, 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. Nota Bene transitioned to an electronic publication in Spring 2010.

The latest issue, as well as all past copies can be found here http://www.library.yale.edu/notabene/

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 10:42 AM

Team exploring linguistic legacy of Cherokee documents at Beinecke

In a small classroom on the lower level of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a cardboard box, small scraps of paper, and manila file folders are set out before three researchers. The modest setting belies the unprecedented project being undertaken.

For the first time ever, the Beinecke is delving into its Kilpatrick collection of Cherokee manuscripts, nearly 2,000 documents from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries, all written in the hand of native authors. The goal is to discover what is in the collection, translate, and catalog all the documents, and make them available to researchers and educators. Reda more at: http://news.yale.edu/2013/09/12/team-exploring-linguistic-legacy-cherokee-documents-beinecke

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 10:45 AM

Met Opera On Demand Now Available

Thanks to the generosity of Yale alumnus Frederick Iseman (Yale College '74), the Yale School of Music and the Gilmore Music Library now offer access to the spectacular Met Opera on Demand. Click here to give it a try: http://metopera.org/ondemand/index.aspx
Met Opera on Demand includes dozens of productions from the Met's award-winning "Live in HD" series of movie-theater transmissions, featuring opera superstars Natalie Dessay, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Juan Diego Flórez, Elīna Garanča, Anna Netrebko, Deborah Voigt, and many more. Classic Met telecasts from 1977-2001 including "Aida" starring Leontyne Price, "La Bohème" starring Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Scotto, Jon Vickers as Otello, and more. More than 300 radio broadcast performances dating back to 1936, representing nearly all of the most popular operas ever composed and many of the greatest singers in the Met's history including Björling, Callas, Corelli, Horne, Nilsson, Sutherland, Tebaldi, Te Kanawa, and Tucker. All Met Opera on Demand videos include English subtitles, and many recent performances also include subtitles in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. New operas are added every month, and the App provides an easy way to bookmark your Favorites and return to them anytime.

Happy viewing everybody!

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 11:54 AM

The Power of Pictures

The final exhibition of the Beinecke’s 50th anniversary celebrations, The Power of Pictures, draws upon the Library’s collections to consider our visual heritage, a record of image-making that began at least 40,000 years ago.

In the digital era our daily lives are awash in pictures: still and moving, personal and public, realistic and fantastic. Images, and the means by which we share them, have proliferated. They hang on our walls and refrigerators; glow on our flat-screen televisions, tablet computers, and smartphones; confront us on billboards as we travel to work or play. We live in what may be the most image-saturated culture ever, but the collections of the Beinecke Library remind us that our contemporary experience has deep historical roots.

At least since the time of the oldest surviving cave paintings, humans have created pictures to record their experiences, depict their emotions, and express their ideas. Pictures have been a basis for defining communities—positively and negatively, autonomously and by imposition. They have inspired passions and provoked contemplation. They represent the world as encountered and as imagined. Learning to write did not diminish our fascination with visual images. Since then, artists and writers have collaborated to develop an astonishing variety of techniques which place images and words in play with each other. Together, they achieve more than either medium can by itself and sustain a never-ending process of reimagining our world and ourselves.

The Power of Pictures seeks to expose the Beinecke Library’s abundant visual resources and to encourage faculty, students, and visiting scholars to explore the collections more fully than this temporary exhibition can. We hope our selections will excite your curiosity and stir your imagination.

The exhibition will be on view until December 16 in the Beinecke Library and is free and open to the public.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 12:22 PM

Bass Media Lab Petting Zoo!

Looking to gain some experience with professional-grade media equipment? There is now a Bass Media Equipment Petting Zoo in the Bass Media Lab (BML)! Specialized equipment is checked out by the media techs that staff the BML so that patrons who are interested in some of the more specialized equipment might have some practice time with it before they check it out for themselves. For example, this week the Sennheiser Boom mic is being featured.

Media techs staff the BML from 3-9pm during the week and on Sunday, and 10am-6pm on Saturdays. Check with the staff in the Bass Library for details.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 2:16 PM

The Human Relations Area File (eHRAF): An Overview and History

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sterling Memorial Library, International Room

This presentation discusses the history and purpose of the Human Relations Area Files' two databases–eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology. These databases were designed to encourage and facilitate the cross-cultural study of human culture, society, and behavior in the past and present. What makes these databases unique is the organization by culture and by subject-indexing system at the paragraph-level. During the presentation, we will discuss how the databases grew out of Yale's interdisciplinary Institute of Human Relations founded in 1929, how the databases and editorial processes changed over time, and what we plan for the future. HRAF is a teaching and research resource for any discipline with an interest in understanding cultural diversity and culture change. This talk is sponsored by the Standing Committee on Professional Awareness (SCOPA).

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 2:41 PM

Developing a Research Agenda for Librarians

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Sterling Memorial Library International Room

Library and information science (LIS) professionals working in academic libraries are encouraged to publish in the professional literature, whether for promotion through the ranks, to enhance their professional reputation, for the sense of satisfaction that comes from contributing to conversations of wide professional interest, or for a combination of these reasons. Yet seldom do they receive any formal advice or coaching on how to go about doing this. Todd Gilman http://resources.library.yale.edu/StaffDirectory/Detail.aspx?q=199, Librarian for Literature in English at Yale University Library and author of the recently published book The Theatre Career of Thomas Arne http://www2.lib.udel.edu/udpress/thomasarne.htm, will speak about developing a research agenda: how to come up with a valid topic to investigate, how to design and distribute surveys, the elements of a professional article, available Yale campus resources for those who wish to undertake a research project leading to publication, and navigating the peer review process. This talk is sponsored by the Standing Committee on Professional Awareness (SCOPA) and is free and open to the public.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 2:43 PM

Library Events During Campus Wide Open House, October 12th

On Saturday October 12th, the Library will join with many other departments around Yale University to celebrate the inauguration of President Peter Salovey, as part of the campus-wide open house, featuring exhibits, events and tours. The Yale Library will be offering various events including an open house in Manuscripts & Archives showcasing items from its collections relating to Yale presidents and Yale history; tours of the new Beinecke exhibit The Power of Pictures; and an open house and tours at the Center for Science & Social Science Information (CSSSI). There will also be exhibits on view all across the library system. For a full schedule of the campus open house activities: http://inauguration.yale.edu/openhouse

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 25, 2013 3:13 PM

September 26, 2013

All welcome to the Beinecke's 50th Anniversary Closing Events

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is celebrating the end of its 50th anniversary with a series of exciting musical events, open to all. All events are free and open to the public.

Umberto Eco
Friday October 18, 5pm
Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven

Umberto Eco is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1980 novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He has since written further novels, including Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum) and L'isola del giorno prima (The Island of the Day Before). His most recent novel Il cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery), released in 2010, was a best-seller.

La Prose du Transsibérien
A musical setting of Blaise Cendrars’ epic poem by Matthew Suttor.
English translation by Timothy Young

Saturday October 19, 1pm
Off Broadway Theater, 41 Broadway, New Haven, CT 06511

Inspired by the brilliant 1913 collaboration between Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delauney that created the monumental modernist artist’s book, this musical setting of the Cendrars’ poem follows the poet as he recounts his youthful journey across Russia in 1905, a time of strife and conflict, revolt and bloodshed. The narrative, beginning in St. Petersburg and moving along the Transsiberien railway to the far East, gathers fragments of memory, shadowed figures, images of beauty and loss, and transforms them into a story of a trip that brings the poet to the brink of regret.

Directed by Elizabeth Diamond, Yale School of Drama, the setting features the Jasper String Quartet, a group of Yale graduates already garnering raves for their performances, along with Yale School of Music student Ashley Smith. Max Gordon Moore, recent graduate of the YSD, is The Narrator. The talents of alumni of the YSD fill the technical roster for the show featuring projection design by Hannah Wasileski, lighting design by Yi Zhao, and sound design by Liz Atkinson.

HxWxL
Saturday October 19, 10am-4pm
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The mezzanine of the Beinecke Library is transformed into a chamber of voices and music as Matthew Suttor’s sound installation is performed for one day on October 19th, 2013. Drawn from the rich resources in the Beinecke Library’s collections and archives, this collage threads together the voices of poets reading their works, civil war songs, Shakespeare’s sonnets, folk music, Futurist Art of Noise experiments, even recorded telephone conversations – to create a fabric of sound. Visit our current exhibition on the Power of Pictures and be treated to the Power of Sound.

Gala Concert
Saturday October 19, 5:30pm
Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College Street

The culminating event of Beinecke Library’s 50th anniversary celebration, a gala concert celebrates the sweet sounds that help define the library’s wonderful past and its glorious future. The musical program is drawn from original manuscripts and printed music in the library’s collections, including two major pieces in the Frederick R. Koch Collection: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Trio no. 1 and Francis Poulenc’s Les Biches. Completing the bill are a suite of art songs based on poetry by Beinecke authors and as a finale, James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. Join the fun and help us celebrate! Complimentary tickets will be available for the gala concert beginning September 30 at the Sprague Hall box office, 470 College Street.

Seating for the lecture and the concerts is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 26, 2013 1:13 PM

September 30, 2013

Re-introducing iPads!

The Yale community can check out iPad 2s from Bass Library through the Bass Media Equipment Checkout service. The iPads are running iOS 7, Apple's newest mobile software, and come pre-installed with Adobe Photoshop Express, iWork, Garage Band, and more! iPads can be checked out for two weeks at a time from the Bass Library circulation desk. Reservations can be made in advance at http://clc.yale.edu/media-equipment/
Check one out today! Questions? Contact bassmedia@yale.edu

Posted by Amanda Patrick on September 30, 2013 10:25 AM