News

Selected stories from the Beinecke Library, YaleNews, and external media outlets (the latter noted by source in parentheses after title of article).

  • Louise Glück, Nobel laureate and beloved Yale mentor

    October 13, 2023

    Louise Glück, a poet whose evocative voice shaped the literary world for decades, earning her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020, and who became a beloved teacher and mentor as a member of the Yale faculty, died Oct. 13 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was 80.

  • Then and now: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library turns 60 this October

    October 10, 2023

    On October 14, 1963, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library opened to the public and soon became, just as the benefactors intended, a “source of learning and an inspiration to all who enter.” This year, the staff celebrates the Beinecke Library’s 60 years as part of Yale University Library. Explore the then-and-now photos with the embedded slider on the images below

  • Lector of Cherokee is Yale’s first faculty member in an Indigenous language

    October 6, 2023

    In its search for a lecturer, the search committee did not specify Cherokee, Bowern said, but rather left it open to any North American Indigenous language. “We just really wanted to get a fantastic teacher, and Patrick emerged as the successful candidate,” she said. “Cherokee makes sense as a language at Yale because we have a lot of related materials in the Beinecke Library, and we have students who are members of the Cherokee Nation pretty regularly.” Del Percio attributed their proficiency in Cherokee — which is considered one of the more difficult languages to learn — to the many first-language speakers who supported, accepted, and welcomed them over the years. Having that personal interaction is crucial in learning Cherokee, they said, because it’s a tonal language.

  • Will the Beinecke really suffocate you? (Yale Daily News)

    October 6, 2023

    Mystery rhymes with history. I think that’s a fun coincidence. This year, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library will turn 60 years old. One of its most famous texts, The Gutenberg Bible, will turn 568. Beinecke holds a lot of history. And many, many mysteries.

  • In the cards: Library partners work together to solve mysteries of rare tarot deck

    October 4, 2023

    Although in some circles tarot cards are divination tools for predicting the future, the tarot cards in the library’s collection are opening windows into the past. For the past five years, and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the library has collaborated internally and partnered internationally to study the world’s three earliest 15th-century Italian tarot (or tarocchi) decks. One of these decks is the Visconti di Modrone deck, held in the Cary Collection of Playing Cards at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Dating from ca. 1440–45, it is one of the oldest of the three.

  • Uncovering the history of eugenics at Yale University, and its 'afterlives' (WNPR)

    October 2, 2023

    Researchers at Yale University are focused on the harrowing history of eugenics, the role the institution played in developing this psuedoscience, and its many lingering "afterlives." Professor Dan HoSang formed the Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale, and says this history is "integral to the story of the University." HoSang and the Collective also explore how the tenets of eugenics transformed and lived on in some surprising ways. This hour, HoSang joins us, plus we look at how Yale psychiatry programs and public schools in New Haven are building curriculum around this research. For example, Dr. Marco Ramos underscores the legacy of "New Haven as a laboratory," something he asks new psychiatry residents to consider. "Our pedagogy increasingly is asking trainees to be to become critical of that relationship, and say, 'To what extent is my research advancing my interest versus the community that I'm supposed to be serving?'" Dr. Ramos explains, "This history sets up a framework where they can make sense of that and process it emotionally, and they can figure out what they can do to... build trust with the communities they're working with. But that's impossible, I think, unless it's contextualized in this longer history that really starts with eugenics."

  • Pondering the power of art in protest

    September 26, 2023

    “Art, Protest, & the Archives,” an exhibition at the Beinecke Library, explores the connections between dissent and artistic expression over the past century.

  • Seoul mayor visits Yale, delivers lecture on approaches to inclusive growth

    September 22, 2023

    Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of the Republic of Korea’s capital city of Seoul, visited Yale on Thursday. He met with Yale President Peter Salovey, toured the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and delivered a lecture on Seoul’s approach to inclusive growth at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. While the visit was Oh’s first as mayor, he attended Yale Law School as a visiting scholar in 1998.

  • Fall exhibit at the Beinecke Library explores art and protest (Yale Daily News)

    September 14, 2023

    The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s newest exhibit, “Art, Protest, and the Archives,” probes the relationship and tensions between aesthetics and dissent. The exhibit premiered on Aug. 4 and will run through January. The first floor offers a chronological look at protest art over time, while the work upstairs is arranged by topic. Kevin Repp, a curator at the Beinecke, worked with other museum staff to create an exhibition that covers a vast geographical and temporal span.

  • Beinecke event highlights failed effort to make New Haven the site of America’s first HBCU (Yale Daily News)

    September 12, 2023

    Yale’s Beinecke Library hosted an event reflecting on the unsuccessful effort to establish the United States’ first Historically Black College/University in New Haven. The event, which was called “New Haven 1831: What Was and What Could Have Been,” was held on the 192nd anniversary of the very town meeting in 1831 where the proposal for the college was struck down in a 700-4 vote.

  • Rare collection of recordings by Anthony Braxton enters library’s digital collections

    September 7, 2023

    The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library partnered with the Tri-Centric Foundation to digitally preserve and provide online access to a treasure trove of rare archival material: 751 audio and video recordings by Anthony Braxton, one of the most prominent and ground-breaking composers and musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries. “This is perhaps the most notable collection of Anthony Braxton’s recordings anywhere in the world,” said Jonathan Manton, director of digital special collections and access at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. “Thanks to the efforts of Digital Special Collections and Access staff members Christy Bailey-Tomecek, librarian for AV Access Services, and Tracy MacMath, manager of Digital Accessibility and Design, this collection is now available online for teaching, learning, and research both here at Yale, and across the world.”

  • Top 26 Best Things to Do in New Haven Connecticut (New England Explorer)

    August 19, 2023

    Among the unique things to do in New Haven CT is visit the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. This library, which is part of Yale’s campus, houses a vast collection of rare books, manuscripts, maps, and other rare materials, with a particular focus on Western civilization. The library’s building was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1963, featuring a unique modernist exterior made of translucent marble panels that allow natural light to filter through. In the library, you’ll find some of the world’s most treasured literary works, including one of the 48 known copies of the Gutenberg Bible and manuscripts by literary giants such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein. Public visitors are welcome in the exhibition hall at select times during the week (see the website for details).

  • Art School Doc Uncovers Cuba’s Unfinished Spaces (New Haven Independent)

    August 13, 2023

    ... the Ives Main Library on Elm Street partnered with the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on Friday to bring the film to the people of New Haven as a part of a month-long film series dedicated to art and protest. “The Beinecke’s doing a good job of community engagement lately,” said Sandra Rux, one of five viewers who clustered in the library before a large screen, ready to learn about one of the greatest unfinished monuments to Cuba and its history. Before them unfolded a tale of politics, community, and the power of creation.

  • How bonds ate the entire financial system (Financial Times)

    August 3, 2023

    It was a crisp September day in 2015 when Timothy Young arrived at Houten, an unremarkable Dutch commuter town, determined to collect an almost 400-year-old debt. He carried a case containing a fragile piece of goatskin covered in dense writing and numbers. It was a bond, issued in 1648 by a group of Dutch landowners, who managed the dikes on a stretch of the river Lek. They had borrowed 1,000 guilders from a local merchant and the bond explained that, in return for the loan, the merchant would receive a 5