News from the Yale Library News from the Yale Library
The
legacy and career of the late Paul Rand (1914-1996), one of America's pioneering
graphic designers, is reflected in the rich collection of materials recently given
to the Yale Library by his widow, Marion Rand. They join a growing collection
of papers and records maintained by Sterling Memorial Library's Manuscripts and
Archives Department documenting the evolution and influence of the arts at Yale.
The Paul Rand papers include a complete set of Rand's graphic design work documented through publications, book covers, posters, advertisements, trademarks, product packaging, children's books, and two large billboard advertisements. In addition to these finished works, the papers include Rand's "job bags," containing the drawings, sketches, and experiments that trace the development of each project. Rand's correspondence with his colleagues, students, and clients, and his design resource and photograph files will provide insights into his development of visual expressions that are an integral and instantly recognizable part of American culture.
In addition to the designer's personal papers, Marion Rand has generously donated more than 100 books from her late husband's personal library to the Arts Library and more than 200 publications to the Arts of the Book Collection in Sterling Memorial Library. Of the books donated to the Arts Library, many deal with color and color theory and will significantly enrich that library's strong holdings in this field. The Rand books given to the Arts of the Book Collection include materials that inspired Rand himself, as well as a rich collection on the book arts, graphic design, and typography.
Paul Rand was one of the world's leading graphic designers and a Yale faculty member from 1956 to 1991. His corporate logos for United Parcel Service, IBM, ABC, and Cummins Engine are familiar icons of American commerce. As art director for several magazines and a consultant for numerous advertising agencies, Rand was the first recipient of the Florence Prize for Visual Communication (1987). His work enhances the permanent collections of museums in the United States, Europe, and Japan. His books include Thoughts on Design (1946), Design and the Play Instinct (1965), Paul Rand: A Designer's Art (1985), Design, Form, and Chaos (1993), and From Lascaux to Brooklyn (1996).
Through her $2 million gift to the School of Art, Marion Rand has also enabled Yale to create The Paul Rand Center for Graphic Design. The Rand Center will provide state-of-the-art space for teaching in this field. Simultaneously, the Cummins Engine Company of Columbus, Indiana, has donated funds in support of a Paul Rand Lectureship in the School of Art, which will bring eminent designers to campus.
Richard V. Szary, Max Marmor
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
A
recent
article in these pages (Vol. XIII: 2, Spring 1999) described the Imaging America
project, a pilot project that will create, over the next three years, a digital
library of some 50,000 images in support of American Studies. Imaging America
is a prototype for a much larger digital image library comparable in scale to
the slide and photograph collections housed in the Arts Library's Visual Resources
Collection.
Over the past year, the library has been laying the groundwork for a catalog of these images, working with Luna Imaging, Inc., of Venice, California. Luna Imaging's Insight software will furnish both the database infrastructure that will house the digital image library and the applications readers will use to discover, retrieve, manage, and use digital images. Students and faculty are now invited to see the preliminary results and to help the library to make improvements over the coming year. The Databases directory on the Research Workstation now provides access to a suite of image databases being delivered over the Web. Several access points--"Imaging America on the Web," "Luna Imaging Databases at Yale on the Web" or "Visual Resources Collection on the Web"--will take the reader to a site (http://ia-insight.library.yale.edu/insightbrowser2) providing access to the following collections, all delivered through the browser version of the Insight software:
The Insight browser has many features unusual in Web-based software. It enables users not simply to discover and retrieve images and related data from a catalog database but also to create and save groups of images for study and reuse. One can bring images into an "Image Workspace" where they can be resized, brought into relationship with other images, or magnified for detailed study and examination. The Insight browser is now available to the entire Yale community from any networked computer on campus or remotely.
A compelling consideration behind the library's collaboration with Luna Imaging was Luna's willingness to work with Yale in creating a classroom presentation tool that would allow instructors to bring digital images effectively into the classroom. The Insight software will provide a degree of flexibility to the teaching experience that slide technology cannot approximate. While it permits teachers to mimic slide-based instruction (side by side image presentation, presentations scripted beforehand, etc.), it also allows them to be more spontaneous. Live access to an expanding image database will allow them, for example, to choose images and enlarge details as need arises.
This fall, a small group of American Studies faculty is testing the Luna software in the classroom. They have been helping the library identify images essential to their teaching for incorporation into the growing Imaging America database, and they are employing the Luna software for preparing and presenting lectures. These instructors will use the Java client version of Insight. Unlike the browser version, the client must reside on a specific workstation and offers access to the entire suite of Insight software features. Individuals wishing to test this version may do so at the public workstations in the Franke Periodicals Reading Room at SML or in the Arts Library.
Readers interested in knowing more about the Luna Imaging collaboration are invited to contact Max Marmor, Arts Librarian (max.marmor@yale.edu); faculty interested in working with the software are encouraged to contact Barbara Rockenbach (barbara.rockenbach@yale.edu), Instructional Services Librarian at the Arts Library.
Max Marmor
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
The Government Documents and Information Center has been a U.S. Federal government depository since 1859; its holdings include congressional, judicial and executive branch agency publications in a variety of formats--paper, microform, compact discs, and Websites. In 1976, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), the agency responsible for administering the Federal depository program, began to catalog in machine-readable format. Soon after, MARCIVE, a private-sector vendor, created a system that provided libraries with a method for profiling their holdings and retrieving on tape the bibliographic records that matched the profile. Yale's retrospective tape load contained 240,000 bibliographic records. Following the initial load, Yale now receives weekly a tape with minimal level records for new receipts. And once a month, these records are overlaid with full bibliographic records.
As the Federal depository program migrates to become a totally electronic program, records for government publications released only in electronic format will be added to Orbis. Uniform resource locators (URLs) are added to existing print and/or microform records whenever appropriate.
Sandra K. Peterson
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
For many years, readers have asked the library to use email for circulation notices,
to send reminders, and to notify them about overdue books more promptly. New software
provided by the Orbis system's vendor plus a good deal of planning and effort
on the part of library staff made it possible to do so this year.
In recent months, the library's method for notifying readers about books they are using or want to use has undergone a profound change. In June, the preferred delivery method for circulation notices was changed to email for all readers with University email accounts. With the exception of bills for unreturned books, all types of notices are now automatically sent by email without staff intervention.
For most readers, this service improvement means that they learn the next day when a book is recalled from them or placed on a hold shelf in response to their request. Though the notices contain much the same text in the email format, the new service provides links which allow readers to send responses to library staff for specific services such as renewal or to inquire about a problem.
In September, after a successful beginning, the library expanded its reminder notice service. For loans of longer than one week, readers now receive a due date reminder a week in advance. At the same time, the schedule for overdue notices was changed so that the first notice is sent on the first day a book is overdue. In October, in order to improve delivery time for readers without email, the library began to send printed notices through the U.S. mail to readers who formerly received Campus Mail delivery.
Not surprisingly, readers are pleased with the email notification service. "What a great service this is!" "Having this reminder is such a good idea," are frequent replies to reminders.
Susan E. Crockford-Peters
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
The Access Services staff has taken major steps to ameliorate these conditions. In the summer of 1999, pockets of "no room" books were reorganized in proper call number sequence and consolidated into as few "overflow" shelving areas as possible. Signs placed throughout the stacks now guide readers to the overflow shelving areas. Many books, however, remained on trucks.
By June 2000, staff had transferred over 150,000 selected little-used titles from the stacks to the new Library Shelving Facility (LSF) in Hamden. With this new-found space, staff could begin returning books to their proper locations on shelves. Over the summer, they shifted some 750,000 volumes from over fifty book trucks and eliminated many overflow shelves.
Access Services reintroduced systematic shelf reading in the stacks. Starting where books were removed to LSF, staff "read the shelves," verifying that books are in their proper order. To date, close to one half million volumes have been "read."
More shifting projects are being planned for summer 2001 in a continuing effort to restore the stacks collections to their accurate call number sequences in their proper locations.
Anthony V. Riccio
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
A new Website offers a virtual tour of the Sterling and Cross Campus Libraries: http://www.library.yale.edu/rsc/virtualtour/. This brief introduction and orientation enables visitors to learn about various features of the libraries just as they would in a live tour.
Marianna McKim, Suzanne K. Lorimer
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
In addition to directly documenting the legal profession and the growth of corporate law firms, the records of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft offer insight into the economic and social history of New York City in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Manuscripts and Archives Department's collections of personal and professional papers documenting American legal history are one of the strongest and most historically significant parts of its holdings. The Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft archives will be joining such notable collections as the papers of Alexander Bickel, Abe Fortas, Jerome Frank, Potter Stewart, and Harry Weinberger.
Founded in New York City in 1792 by John Wells, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft started as a one-person law firm serving the needs of a largely agrarian nation. In 1818, Wells formed a partnership with George Washington Strong, a prominent member of New York society and an 1803 graduate of Yale College. After the deaths of Wells (1823) and Strong (1855), descendants of Strong and others continued the firm. By 1878, Charles Strong headed the firm, representing the leading business, social, and cultural organizations of the day. That same year, John L. Cadwalader, a former assistant Secretary of State, joined Strong, catapulting Strong & Cadwalader into the elite ranks of firms representing major corporations. George W. Wickersham, an anti-trust expert, joined Cadwalader in 1883, while Henry W. Taft joined in 1889. The firm officially became known as Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in 1914. Today, Cadwalader has over 400 attorneys with offices in New York, Charlotte, Washington, D.C. and London.
Nancy F. Lyon
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
Since early September, most materials formerly housed in SML Room 509 have been available at the closed reserve desk in the Cross Campus Library for use in the reserve room. An ongoing project is underway to install the more heavily used CD-ROMS, such as CETEDOC, the Pennsylvania Gazette, and Encarta Africana, in the Sterling Memorial Library CD-ROM Reference Center. Patrons may consult Orbis to determine the location of a particular item. Staff will continue to support use of these materials.
The ETC officially ceased its support of scanning and Web page development last year. Academic Media & Technology supports instructional Web page development and provides scanners and Web editing software in their computing clusters. There is also a Self-Serve Public Scanning Station in the Arts Library. The Visual Resources Collection (Slides & Photographs) and the Digital Media Center for the Arts can support more ambitious scanning projects. The Library Web Advisory Group provides training for staff working on library Web pages.
Check the ETC Website for updates and contact information (http://www.library.yale.edu/etc).
Laurel Bliss
Nota Bene Vol XIV, No. 3 (Fall 2000)
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