Yale University Library
Yale University Library | |
---|---|
Location | New Haven, Connecticut, United States |
Type | Academic library |
Established | 1701 |
Branches | 15 |
Collection | |
Size | 14.9 million volumes[1] |
Other information | |
Budget | US$118.8 million (2015–16)[2] |
Director | Barbara Rockenbach[3] |
Employees | 550 full-time employees |
Website | Official website |
The Yale University Library is the
The centerpiece of the library system is the
The library subscribes to hundreds of research databases. Along with the Harvard Library and Columbia Libraries, it was a founding member of the Research Libraries Group consortium. The library is also a member of Borrow Direct, allowing patrons to check out volumes from major American research universities.
History
Establishment (1650–1786)
Throughout the Collegiate School's nascence in the early 18th century, books were the most valuable assets the school could acquire. Although New Haven Colony founder John Davenport began collecting books for a college library in New Haven in the 1650s, the college is said to have been founded by the gift of “forty folios” in Branford, Connecticut by its ten founding Congregational ministers.[6] All were theological texts, and those surviving are now stored in the Beinecke Library.
In the school's first three decades, three gifts established Yale's collection. In 1714,
Four years later, Elihu Yale, who had previously given some books at Dummer's behest, sent 300 books along with other goods from his estate in Wales. The school, recently moved to New Haven, took Yale's name in recognition of the bequest. A third major donation arrived fifteen years later, when philosopher-bishop George Berkeley donated his 1,000-volume,a major assembly of classical works library to the school.[8] Now holding a sizeable collection, Yale President Thomas Clap decided to catalogue the collection for the first time, then housed in the college's only building, the College House.[9]
This first inventory already showed evidence of book losses and thefts. During the move from Saybrook to New Haven, residents angry to lose the collection overturned the ox-carts carrying the books and liberated much of the college's collection for private use. The collection, then about 4,000 items in total, was sent inland during the Revolutionary War, a move that culled nearly a third of the collection.[10]
19th Century growth and the first College Library (1790–1930)
The library moved often during its first 150 years while the campus’
Sterling Library and research collections (1920–)
As the collection surpassed one million volumes in the 20th century, it became clear that the library would need a new building. In 1917, a $17-million bequest from
Although it had received many important books and manuscripts pertaining to the contemporaneous development of science, the American colonies, and ecclesiastical history, it had received only piecemeal historical contributions, such as the Assyrian tablets received in 1855 that founded the Babylonian Collection.[13][14] Beginning under the librarianship of Andrew Keogh in 1924, the library undertook a purposeful program of collecting rare books, personal papers, and archival works. English professor Chauncey Brewster Tinker mounted a campaign among Yale alumni to purchase or donate valuable items, and early gifts included a complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the papers of Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and the papers of James Boswell.[14] Having amassed a major rare books collection, the university established the Beinecke Library in 1963 as a specialized rare books storage and preservation facility, and leaving the Sterling Library's former Rare Book Room with a more modest archival collection.
The Sterling library is also home to the largest collection of Benjamin Franklin papers in the world, which it received as a gift in 1935 from William Smith Mason, of the Yale class of 1888, and is considered the largest and most valuable collection of materials ever given to the library. It is headquarters for the editorial staff who are collating and publishing The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, an ongoing effort which began in 1954 and is expected to include up to 50 volumes, containing more than 30,000 extant Franklin papers.[15][16]
More specialized facilities would follow: the Kline Science Library absorbed the library's science collections, the Mudd Library received social science books, and smaller libraries in engineering, physics, and geology were established by academic departments. By 2000, the library had expanded to more than a dozen facilities around campus, and retained over 500 staff. In 2012, many of the Science Hill libraries were re-consolidated at Kline Science Library as the Center for Science and Social Science Information.
Facilities
Sterling Memorial Library
The library's largest building, Sterling Memorial Library, contains about four million volumes in the humanities, social sciences, area studies, as well as several special collections projects and the department of Manuscripts and Archives. The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library resides within Sterling Library, and the building is connected via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, a facility for frequently-used materials.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Opened in 1963, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is the library's principal repository of rare and historical books and manuscripts. It holds approximately 800,000 volumes, including a
Lillian Goldman Law Library
The Lillian Goldman Law Library, situated in Sterling Law Building of the Yale Law School, contains nearly 800,000 volumes relating to law and jurisprudence. These include one of the most significant collections of rare books pertaining to legal history, as well as the most complete collection of William Blackstone's commentaries.[18]
Other major facilities
The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale's medical library, houses a collection of historical medical works. The Center for Science and Social Science Information, situated in Kline Biology Tower on Science Hill, contains science and social science works consolidated from the former Kline Science Library facilities. The Haas Arts Library in Rudolph Hall houses art and architectural materials. The Yale Film Archive is a film archive with a collection of 35mm and 16mm film prints and original elements, as well as films on Blu-ray, DVD, and VHS.
The Yale University Library includes libraries beyond its campus in New Haven.
References
- ^ Mian, Anam; Roebuck, Gary (2020). ARL Statistics 2018-2019. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries. p. 45. Archived from the original on 2021-07-29. Retrieved 2021-07-29.
- ^ Patrick, Amanda (2016). Nota Bene: Annual Report Issue, Winter 2016-17 (Report). Yale University Library. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ "Barbara Rockenbach appointed Yale's next University Librarian". YaleNews. Yale University. 15 April 2020. Archived from the original on 23 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
- ^ Richards, David Alan. (2022). I Give These Books: The History of Yale University Library 1656-2022. First ed. New Castle Delaware: Oak Knoll Press.
- ^ Mian, Anam; Roebuck, Gary (2020). ARL Statistics 2020. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries.
- ^ Oviatt 1916, pp. 144; Gilman 1861, pp. 1–3.
- ^ a b Gilman 1861, pp. 4.
- ^ Gilman 1861, pp. 5.
- ^ Gilman 1861, pp. 5–6.
- ^ Gilman 1861, pp. 6–7, 10–11.
- ^ a b Gilman 1861, pp. 9.
- ^ Gilman1861, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Gilman 1861.
- ^ a b Taylor 1978.
- ^ Yale University, Essay
- ^ Isaacson, 2004, p. 511
- ^ Rierdan, Ari (29 July 1990). "The View From the Beinecke Library at Yale". New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 July 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
- ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (16 June 2013). "English Gavels Resound in a Trove Headed to Yale". New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
- ^ "Yale University Library". Retrieved 2023-10-29.
- ^ "Library Shelving Facility: Fact Sheet". Yale University Library. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
- ^ Needham, Paul (11 February 2009). "Finding space for Yale's volumes". Yale Daily News. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
Works cited
- Gilman, Daniel Coit (October 1861). "The Library of Yale College". The University Quarterly. New Haven. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-6848-07614.
- Oviatt, Edwin (1916). The Beginnings of Yale. New Haven: Yale University Press. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
- Taylor, Merrily E. (1978). The Yale University Library, 1701-1978, its history, collections, and present organization. New Haven: Yale University Library.
- "About the Papers of Benjamin Franklin". National Archives. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
- "The Papers of Benjamin Franklin: About the Project". Yale University. 2022. Retrieved August 28, 2022.