Thank you for visiting the Beinecke Library online!

In 2015, the library celebrated the opening of new state-of-the-art facilities for Technical Services at 344 Winchester Avenue and in 2016, the iconic library building at 121 Wall Street was reopened after a complete renovation … and now, in 2019, the website has been refreshed and renewed.

The website renovation project keeps with the library’s 2027 Visions and Aspirations, to make its digital infrastructure “provide all who enter virtually a level of service, accessibility, and inspiration on par with that enjoyed on-site.”

The new look, developed with partners at Yale Information Technology Services and the University Printer’s Office, matches in the digital realm the Beinecke Library’s design system for print, all informed and inspired by Gordon Bunshaft’s architectural masterpiece that first opened in 1963.

The refreshed and renewed site adheres to the highest standards of accessibility followed by Yale University overall and shared fully by the Yale University Library. The site aims to provide clearer pathways for the varied constituencies of the library, whether public visitors, individual scholars, classroom users, or friends near and far who engage primarily with the library and its digital collections online.

The library thanks all the individuals on campus and in the New Haven community who participated in the research and discovery work that helped shape the new design, and the scores of Beinecke Library staff who have given their time, ideas, and energy to the comprehensive renovation of this website.

The library is particularly grateful to colleagues at ITS, especially Dana Lipnickas, Franz Hartl, J’Vaughn Johnson, Taber Lightfoot, Chao Hang Lu, Vincent Massaro, Sylvia Perez, Julie Ramaccia, Mark Saba, and Heather White; and to Rebecca Martz in the University Printer’s Office; for their effort to refresh and renew the Beinecke Library’s online home.

This new version of the library’s website is more accessible, more secure, easier to read, and clearer to navigate. In other words, it is better and improved. A quick check of any the many lexicographical texts in the collections, though, shows that better and improved are not synonyms for perfect!

Just as the library adds to its collections and updates its catalog records regularly, so, too, this website will benefit from the ongoing work of many Beinecke Library staff who will be editing existing and adding new content in the days, weeks, and years ahead.

Enjoy!