Instruction and Outreach

In addition to their principal use as source material for research projects, archival collections make excellent and engaging fodder for exercises designed to help students understand appropriate primary-source research methodologies and strategies. We welcome and encourage the use of archival collections in Manuscripts and Archives in teaching at Yale. We work collaboratively with faculty members, graduate teaching fellows, and department liaison librarians to craft class sessions that actively engage Yale students in finding, assessing, and using primary sources in their research. These sources might include, where relevant, library special collections materials, items from the library's general book stacks, databases licensed by the library, and content available on the open Web.

With the opening of the renovated public spaces in Manuscripts and Archives in January 2018, we now have the Gates Classroom within the security perimeter of the department, dedicated to teaching with primary sources from Yale's special collections. 

In addition to working with students in class sessions, we can place materials on hold in our reading room for student use in course assignments. We also have a limited ability to digitize collection materials for use on your course's Canvas site.

If you aren't sure who to talk to regarding a session you'd like to offer in conjunction with a course you are teaching, please don't hesitate to contact us! If we aren't the appropriate contact for your need within the Yale University Library, we'll put you in touch with someone who can help you.