The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library holds one of the largest and most dynamic collections of rare books, manuscripts, and archives in the world. Its holdings draw hundreds of scholars, artists, and critics from around the world to the reading room each year. Thousands of students from Yale and beyond learn about the history of human thought through hands-on sessions with original artifacts in the Beinecke classrooms. Each year, new acquisitions build on the collections’ strengths and establish new areas of excellence, affording opportunities for interdisciplinary research, scholarly exploration, creativity, and intellectual exchange.

Part of the Yale University Library system, the Beinecke Library opened in 1963 in a building designed by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with volumes from the Rare Book Room of Sterling Library, and three special collections: the Collection of American Literature, the Collection of Western Americana, and the Collection of German Literature. These were later joined by the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection. Since its opening, the Beinecke Library has become the principal repository for books in the Yale collection printed anywhere before 1800, books printed in North America before 1821, newspapers and broadsides printed in the United States before 1851, and manuscripts and early printed books from the Middle and Near East, Japan, China, and Korea as well as special formats such as playing cards and maps. In 2022 the Beinecke Library merged with Yale Library’s Manuscripts and Archives repository, adding significant archival holdings to the collections, including the Fortunoff Video Archive of Holocaust Testimonies.

Today, the collections span over a hundred thousand linear feet of manuscript and archival material, ranging from ancient papyri and medieval manuscripts to modern organizational records, personal papers of modern writers and statesmen, artists’ books, photographs, audio-visual and born-digital material. The Beinecke’s extensive Digital Library allows visitors to browse more than 1 million images of material from across the collections.

A nexus for original scholarship in a wide range of disciplines, the Beinecke collections are used by scholars and practitioners who have made significant contributions in their fields: from literary and cultural studies to the history of science, music, theater, and art; the history of the book, of photography, graphic design, and architecture; social, intellectual, and political history; medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century Europe; American literature; American diplomacy; Connecticut and New Haven history; Western Americana; nineteenth-century imperialism; African American culture; British literature; gay, lesbian, and transgender studies; transatlantic Modernism; postwar counterculture; environmental history; and contemporary American poetry.