Tours

Numerous tours and open houses of Yale, New Haven and Connecticut treasures will be offered during the 2004 preconference week. Restrictions and fees apply to some tours. Please see the Sign-Up Tours, Open Houses and Drop-In Tours descriptions below for dates and times.

Many tours and open houses are in Sterling Memorial Library. There are two convenient entrances at 120 High St. (front entrance) and 130 Wall St. (side entrance). The more convenient of the two locations is identified when appropriate, otherwise both locations are listed.

Sign-Up Tours
Registration for these sign-up tours is limited and will be on a first-come first-serve basis. Each of these tours will be offered only once during the week. Please see the descriptions below for dates and times.

Sign-up sheets will be available at the RBMS registration area in the Omni Hotel on Monday, June 21, and at the registration table in the Davies Auditorium/Becton Center on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lewis Walpole Library & Wesleyan University Special Collections Tour
Board bus at Omni Hotel
155 Temple St.
Monday, June 21
9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
This tour will consist of a morning visit to the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, CT, and an afternoon visit to the special collections of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Lunch will be served at the Walpole Library. Registration is limited to 15. There is a fee of $25 for this tour. The tour group will depart around 9 a.m. from the Omni Hotel.

Mark Twain House and Lewis Walpole Library Tour
Board bus at Omni Hotel
155 Temple St.
Monday, June 21
9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
This tour will consist of a morning visit to the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT, and an afternoon visit to the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington. Lunch will be served at the Walpole Library. Registration is limited to 15. There is a fee of $37 for this tour. The tour group will depart around 9 a.m. from the Omni Hotel.

Note: The Twain/Walpole Tour is full. As of April 29, 2004, ACRL is no longer accepting registration for this event, as there is already a significant waiting list.

Digital Tour
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library & Sterling Memorial Library
121 Wall St.
Monday, June 21
2:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Since 1995 Beinecke Library staff have been scanning a wide range of materials from Beinecke collections to support teaching and research and in response to patron requests. These digital images are available through a locally developed searchable database on the Library's web site at http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/. This tour will start with a visit to the Beinecke Digital Studio, which opened in January 2001, and a demonstration of the database and description of the scanning program. The group will then go to the nearby Digital Conversion Facility in Sterling Memorial Library for an introduction to the programs being offered through this unit. See the Digital Conversion Facility website and The Manuscripts and Archives Digital Image Database. Registration is limited to 15.

Elizabethan Club
459 College St.
Monday, June 21
2:00 - 4:30 p.m.
The Elizabethan Club was founded in 1911 by Alexander Smith Cochran as a place for informal conversation between junior and senior members of the university. He gave the Club the white frame house on College Street, an endowment, and the outstanding collection of rare books in early English literature. These include the four folios of Shakespeare, the famous forty quartos acquired from the Hugh Collection, the finest of the four known copies of Venus and Adonis, and the unique copy of The Quenes Maiesties Passage, describing Queen Elizabeth's first "progress" the day before her coronation. Registration is limited to 15.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Building Tour
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
121 Wall St.
Monday, June 21
2:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Beinecke staff will provide a tour of the public areas of the Beinecke Library. This tour will provide a basic introduction to the Beinecke Library, its exhibit areas, including the Gutenberg Bible, the reading room, and lobby. During the tour we will discuss the history of the library, its architecture, and collections. The tour will start at the reception desk. Registration is limited to 25.

Lillian Goldman Law Library and Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room
Yale Law School
127 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
This tour will visit the renovated Lillian Goldman Law Library and the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room. The Rare Book Room collection is particularly strong in Anglo-American court reports, digests, statutes, monographs, and trials before 1860, and has strong holdings in international law, with especially good Grotius and Pufendorf collections, and a large collection of Roman and canon law. The tour will start in the Rare Book Room (Level 2). Registration is limited to 15.

Irving S. Gilmore Music Library
Sterling Memorial Library
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Music Library at Yale holds one of the largest collections of music scores, sound recordings, and music research materials in the United States. Among the strengths of the collections are complete runs of nearly every available monumental set and composer's collected edition, an extensive collection of historical treatises on music theory, and early publications of opera scores and chamber music. The Library also houses the Historical Sound Recordings Collection, the American Musical Theater Collection, and the papers and archives of Charles Ives, Virgil Thomson, Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, Carl Ruggles, Leo Ornstein, Paul Bekker, Karl Weigl, Deems Taylor, Henry Gilbert, E. Robert Schmitz, Lehman Engel, Goddard Lieberson, Horatio Parker, Kay Swift, Harold Rome, Vladimir Horowitz, and Benny Goodman. The tour will meet at the Music Library circulation desk. Registration is limited to 15.

Preservation Department
Sterling Memorial Library
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The tour will visit the Yale University Library Preservation Department, which includes the Conservation Lab, Collections Care and Core. At each location there will be an opportunity to hear about what is done in that area. The Conservation Lab and Collections Care will have examples of conservation treatments and repairs. The Core unit will talk about reformatting options and mass deacidification. There will also be an opportunity for an overview of all preservation activities within the libraries, and highlights of some specific preservation projects. Registration is limited to 15.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Behind the Scenes
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
121 Wall St.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
This tour will visit the various departments that work behind the scenes at the Beinecke Library. These include the Manuscript Unit, Technical Services, Rare Book Team, and Public Services. This tour will focus on the daily work and activities of these departments. At each location there will be an opportunity to visit the various workspaces, hear and discuss activities in that department, and see current projects. Registration is limited to 10.

Sterling Memorial Library Building Tour
Sterling Memorial Library
120 High St.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
When the library honoring John William Sterling, Class of 1864, was completed in 1930 it was one of the largest in the world, providing a shelf capacity for three million volumes and seating for two thousand readers. As the library collection has grown to over eleven million volumes in twenty-one libraries, Sterling has come to serve as the central research library for the humanities. The tour will begin at the front entrance to the library, where the exterior features of this masterpiece of modern Gothic architecture designed by James Gamble Rogers will be pointed out. Highlights of the interior include: the lavish decorations illustrating the histories of books, writing, and Yale in sculpture by Lee Lawrie and Rene P. Chamberlan, stained glass windows by G. Owen Bonawit, and ironwork by Samuel Yellin; the Starr Main Reference Room; the spectacular Irving S. Gilmore Music Library constructed within the library's light court; the exhibit halls and Memorabilia Room; and the library courtyard, a picturesque garden spot for reading and relaxation. Whimsical sculpture of readers and students napping, smoking, drinking, listening to a crystal set radio, and reading a humorous book will also be noted. Registration is limited to 25.

Manuscripts & Archives
Sterling Memorial Library
130 Wall St.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The resources held by Manuscripts & Archives include the Yale University Archives and collections of personal and family papers and organizational records. Besides unique textual materials such as letters, diaries, and architectural drawings, collections include printed ephemera, photographs, sound and video recordings, and electronic records. The department collects broadly in the areas of public policy and administration, diplomacy and international affairs; political and social thought and commentary; bioethics; legal and judicial history; the visual and performing arts; urban planning and architecture; environmental policy and affairs; and psychology and psychiatry. The tour will include a display of representative materials from the holdings, as well as a visit to the reference center, reading room, and staff work spaces. Registration is limited to 15.

Yale Collection of Musical Instruments
15 Hillhouse Ave.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments contains approximately 1,000 objects, including instruments and accessories, documenting the history of Western and American music. Registration is limited to 15.

Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel St.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
“Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature in the Victorian Era”: Tour of current exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, led by Elisabeth Fairman, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Center. She will discuss her role as in-house curator for this loan exhibition, with its opportunities to incorporate materials from the Center's collection of rare books and manuscripts. Registration is limited to 15.

Sterling Memorial Library Open Houses
The following presentations and collections are open to all conference attendees. Please see the descriptions below for dates and times.

Beta-testing SAMMA (System for Automated Migration of Media Archives)
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall
130 Wall St.
Monday, June 21
2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies is a beta test site for SAMMA, a robotic system that can clean and reformat videotapes and capture metadata on the condition of the source tapes. Joanne W. Rudof, Archivist, Fortunoff Video Archive, will introduce this new preservation/conversion technology developed by MediaMatters LLC, a New York company headed by the well-know video preservationist James Lindner.

Arts of the Book Collection
Sterling Memorial Library, 1st Floor, Room 177
120 High St.
Tuesday, June 22 -Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Arts of the Book Collection (AOB) contains both examples of and material about the arts of the book, such as binding, book history, illustration, calligraphy, graphic design, paper making, and typography.

Babylonian Collection
Sterling Memorial Library Rooms, 3rd Floor, Rooms 318-327
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Yale Babylonian Collection houses the largest collection of cuneiform inscriptions in the United States. See the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations website for a more detailed description of the collection.

Franklin Collection
Sterling Memorial Library, 2nd Floor, Room 230
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Franklin Collection is a component of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, a collaborative project at Yale to "collect, edit, and publish the writings and papers of one of America's most remarkable founding fathers."

Yale Map Collection
Sterling Memorial Library, 7th Floor
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Tuesday, June 22 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
The Yale Map Collection has one of the largest university map collections in the United States.

Yale and New Haven Tours
The following libraries and collections will be open for drop-in visits to all conference attendees. Please see the descriptions below for dates and times.

Yale University Campus Tour
Yale University Visitor Center
149 Elm St.
Monday - Friday
10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Yale University undergraduates lead daily walking tours of the Yale campus. See the Yale University Visitor Center website for details.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
121 Wall St.
Monday, June 21 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

Sterling Memorial Library
120 High St.
130 Wall St.
Monday, June 21 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel St.
Monday, June 21 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

New Haven Colony Historical Society Museum
114 Whitney Ave.
Tuesday, June 22 - Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

New Haven Colony Historical Society Library
114 Whitney Ave.
Wednesday, June 23
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.