The Beinecke Library 2017-2018 Annual Report, including stories, statistics, and selected recent acquisitions, can be read and downloaded here:
Beinecke Library Annual Report 2017-2018.pdf
In his opening letter for the report, Beinecke Library Director Edwin C. Schroeder writes:
This report documents a dynamic year, the first full one in complete operation at 121 Wall Street since 2013-2014, after which renovations of the Bunshaft building began and our new state-of-the-art facility for technical services opened nearby.
Statistics tell some of the story: Nearly 180,000 people came through the doors and the website had 2.5 million page views; we acquired more than 17,000 printed volumes and cataloged nearly 20,000 rare book titles; almost 600 sessions were held in the expanded classrooms and more than 2,300 new readers registered for research.
Behind all these numbers are people: an extraordinary library staff, inquisitive students and scholars, eager public visitors, and dedicated donors and friends.
This library is an extraordinary architectural icon, for sure, with an impressive collection of compelling documents of human culture. First and foremost, though, the Beinecke Library thrives thanks to the people who work here and those who come to engage the past, in the present, for the future in the reading room, classrooms, exhibition hall, and on-line.
This year we mourned the deaths, and celebrated the lives, of two Yale alumni, William Sperry Beinecke ’36 and William Sherman Reese ’77, both special friends of the library who demonstrated the power of people to shape and steward institutions in the service of society.
Bill Beinecke took great pride in what his father and uncles did to build this library and how it succeeded so well in meeting their aspirations as a center of scholarship, research, teaching, and public exhibitions. As a friend and as a Yale trustee, he made sure the library both maintained a secure fiscal foundation and kept growing in its reach.
Bill Reese was involved with the Beinecke Library from his undergraduate days and throughout his life, as an advisor, donor, agent, and friend. His contributions are inestimable. Few people have had as much impact on special collections at Yale. Time after time, things worked out according to an abiding formula: follow his advice and you came out the winner.
Bill Beinecke and Bill Reese exemplified the best of what the Beinecke Library has been, is now, and can be. Their legacies inspire my colleagues and me as we work to guide this place as an inspiration to all who enter in the years ahead.