Yale University Library News

Exploring the Treasures of the Yale Library Sterling Memorial Library

September 28, 2017

The Yale University Library comprises 15 libraries, vast and diverse collections, the expertise of approximately 500 staff, and a broad range of services that are available to the entire Yale community. The open house will present an array of current projects, collections, services, and resources from all across the library system in one of the most spectacular and iconic buildings on campus.

Here's a list of what you will get to see!

Lewis Walpole Library
Walpolooza: a year-long celebration of the tercentenary of Horace Walpole's birth

The Lewis Walpole Library has at its heart the collection of books, manuscripts, and works of art formerly belonging to Horace Walpole. 2017 marks the 300th anniversary of Walpole's birth, and the Lewis Walpole Library has planned a year's worth of events to celebrate the occasion, ranging from a scholarly conference, lecture, and workshop, to exhibitions, public talks, and a weekly blog. We would like to highlight the Library's Walpolian holdings and the programs we have planned to commemorate this anniversary.

Yale Digital Humanities Lab
Digital Humanities at Yale

The space, community, and resources we offer Yale scholars to support digital humanities projects.

Center for Science and Social Science Information
Real Tips for Fake News

Being a critical thinker is more important than ever in being a good citizen and student. Our project frames the fake news discussion with interactive activities such as a Fake News Quiz.  It is our hope that after attending this workshop, people will have more tools to discern what is fake news and propaganda.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Beinecke Library: An Inspiration to All Who Enter (in person or online!)

The Beinecke Library now holds more than 1,000,000 books, millions of manuscripts, and many tens of thousands of papyri, photographs, maps, posters, paintings and art objects, as well as extensive audio/visual material and born-digital content.   Beinecke Library's collections range from ancient Egyptian fragments on papyrus through works by living authors and poets. Major collections include American Literature, Western Americana, the General Collection of rare books and manuscripts, German Literature, and the Osborn Collection of English literary and historical manuscripts.    The collections may be consulted in the Reading Room, as no material may be removed from the building. More than 2,000 researchers visit the Beinecke Library annually, with nearly half coming from beyond Yale University. Many Yale students also engage with primary source materials through class visits led by faculty and library staff.  On permanent exhibition in cases on the mezzanine is the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type, and John James Audubon's Birds of America. On the ground floor of the stacks, visitors can see the 1742 Library of Yale College, the first books in the original Yale library, and a collection of incunabula, the earliest printed books in the West, from 1455 to ca. 1600. Special exhibitions on particular themes and collections are arranged throughout the year in the cases and vitrines in the public exhibition areas, which are always open to all with no admission charge.  Scholars, students, and visitors are encouraged to visit the Beinecke Library online at  beinecke.library.yale.edu to learn more about the library's collections, services, history, and mission. The website has links to search the collections, explore more than 1,400 finding aids for particular sets of materials, and view the more than 2 million images on the Beinecke's digital library. 

Cushing Whitney Medical Library
Library support for clinical and translational research: research data management and data science.

Clinical and translational research at Yale involves complex, multi-tiered projects implemented by staff with diverse tasks and skill sets. No one person can be expected to manage every step involved, and so librarians are natural partners. By providing targeted services and training, librarians can help clinical and translational research staff in their goal to translate research into practice.

Born Digital Archives Working Group
Born-Digital Archives!

The Born Digital Archives Working Group includes members from Yale's libraries and museums and has several active projects that we'd like to share. These fall into the general category of capturing, arranging and describing, and providing access to born-digital archival materials. Our approach to these projects has been deeply collaborative and more than one of our projects has been jointly funded by multiple Yale libraries and YCBA.

Ebooks Advisory Group
Ebooks Showcase

We want to share the work we've done as part of the Ebooks Advisory Group. This includes investigation of platforms, purchasing models, usage trends, and accessibility.  We have developed guidelines and principles for purchasing ebooks for our community.  The presentation will include hands on, live demonstrations of various platforms. This will be of interest to both the library patron and library staff community. 

EliScholar Advisory Group
EliScholar & Researcher Profiles

EliScholar and Researcher Profiles are two services offered by the Library to broaden the impact of scholarly works at Yale.

Library Communications
Thirty Years of Nota Bene

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the library's newsletter, Nota Bene: News from the Yale Library. 

Cushing Whitney Medical Library
Cross Departmental Team

The Cross Departmental Team has been instrumental in assisting various departments within Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. It is a novel approach in the library system. We plan to highlight some of the projects/assignments and successes throughout our two year implementation.

2017 Inaugural Celebration of Yale School of Nursing Authors
In our continuing efforts to celebrate the members of Yale School of Nursing (YSN) community we have planned an event to recognize YSN book authors. The event is jointly sponsored by the Nursing Library and the Office of the YSN Dean. To be included, authors needed to have written or been an editor of a book in the past 5 years. The call for participation went to current faculty, staff and students, as well as alumni. We heard back from  13 authors who will be recognized with a total of 15 books.  This is the first event of its kind that has been planned by the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (CWML).  The nursing librarian partnered with a YSN faculty member to begin planning. We included library staff who played integral roles in making sure that we located all YSN authors for the past 5 years. 

DataRescueNHV
#DataRescue New Haven

In Spring 2017, Yale University joined the Data Rescue efforts around the country to save and backup federal data sets. DataRescue New Haven @ Yale was sponsored by the Yale University Library, the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies, with support from the Office of the Deputy Provost for Research. The project and event planning brought many people together to put on two successful events.

Omeka Expert Users Group
Bring Your Exhibition Online!

In the past two years, the Omeka Expert Users Committee stewarded nearly 30 online exhibitions for Yale Library.  These exhibitions, ranging from the Black Panthers to DEAF communities, highlight research conducted by Yale Library staff, faculty, and students.  Using Omeka as a platform, online exhibitions have become easier than ever to make available to public.  We will showcase how Omeka works and the incredible exhibitions now online, providing information on how the Yale community can add their own research.

Entrepreneurship Support Team at Yale University Library
Connecting with Innovators & Entrepreneurs at Yale

DASHRS
Digital Scholarship and Area Studies

The DASHRS librarians have been connecting with faculty and the DH lab to create digital projects highlighting the breadth and rarity of Yale's area studies collections. Displaying our efforts would emphasize the value that area specialists bring to research at Yale, as well as introduce visitors to some lesser-known collection strengths and research services.

Undergraduate Programs
Yale College Personal Librarian Program

Personal librarians help Yale students meet college-level standards for research. Every Yale College student has a personal librarian. Find out more at http://web.library.yale.edu/pl

Music Library
100 Years of the Yale Music Library

2017 marks 100 years since the Music Library became an entity unto itself when it was set up in a room in Sprague and Eva Judd O'Meara became Yale's first Music Librarian. This presentation will provide an insight into the founding of the Yale Music Library, as well as the Oral History of American Music and Historical Sound Recordings Collection. It will also include materials that represent the Music Library today, how the Music Library has developed since 1917.     

Quicksearch Advisory Group
Quicksearch Improvements

As the unified discovery tool with a prominent location on the home page of the YUL website, Quicksearch is an essential service of the library, particularly for undergraduates and novice users.  Over the past year, Library IT, the Quicksearch Advisory Group, and staff from around the library have worked to improve Quicksearch.  Late this summer we released a powerful Advanced Search function, which should appeal to more advanced users, the incorporation of the Databases list, with robust MARC records providing enhanced discovery of databases; improved non-Latin character searching (e.g., CJK), and enhancements to searching in Articles+ with prefiltering to Scholarly resources - Journal articles, to better point students to scholarly literature for their research papers.

Yale Film Study Center

Tracing its roots to film collections first acquired by Yale in 1968 (50 years ago), the Yale Film Study Center was founded in 1982 (35 years ago), and is thus celebrating two milestone anniversaries this academic year. The Film Study Center also celebrates becoming part of the Yale University Library in July of this year! An Associate of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the Film Study Center has more than 5,000 35mm and 16mm prints in its film archive and more than 33,000 assets in its video collection. Located in the Whitney Humanities Center, where it conducts its public film series, "Treasures from the Yale Film Archive," the Film Study Center will have a new home in Sterling Memorial Library in about three years.

Disability Awareness Month at YUL
Accessibility at YUL

The DiversAbility at Yale (DAY) Affinity Group is developing several programs for October, which is Disability Awareness Month. Several library staff are members of DAY, which is co-chaired by Cindy Greenspun. 

Manuscripts and Archives
Highlights from Manuscripts and Archives

Manuscripts and Archives, as a major center for historical research, fosters an appreciation for primary resources and promotes innovative uses of them. We advance Yale University's teaching and research missions by acquiring, preserving, and making available historical materials from a variety of sources. We ensure that the cultural and intellectual history of Yale remains vital to its community.

Law Library
"Law Library, Do you have what?"

Come to see what the law library has to offer to the Yale Community in general. Learn about our various collections, including but not limited to New York Times Best Sellers books, DVD's, air mattresses, squash & tennis rackets, air pumps, snow shovels, and more...

GIS Services, Center for Science and Social Science Information

The GIS services at the Center for Science and Social Science Information bring a platform to transform the ongoing research and learning experience at Yale by enabling the integration of the spatial dimension of things, including big geodata. Consultations, decades of combined experience, and the service-oriented customer service provided by our experts, ease the researcher's journey from technology exposure to complex geospatial analysis. Our high-impact geospatial services engage students, faculty, and staff; likewise, their resulting work increases the likelihood of engagement among their audiences.