Special Collections and Reading Rooms

American Studies Reading Room (SML 608) is designed primarily to support the study needs of graduate students in American Studies. It is equipped with tables and chairs for group and individual study, a small collection of library materials, 20 small lockers, and 20 assigned reading shelves.

American Oriental Society (SML 329) collection contains printed material and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Pali, Prakrit, Chinese, Japanese, and Armenian. The printed materials and the accompanying card catalog are located in Room 329; the manuscripts are located in the Beinecke Library. The collection is open weekdays from 2:30-4:30 during the fall and spring semesters. Materials from the American Oriental Society may be requested through Orbis or at the Sterling Circulation Desk.

Andrews Study (SML 214 & 215) houses the Charles McLean Andrews Memorial Collection of American Colonial History, about 3,300 volumes of Anglo-American historical sources and works. Both rooms contain reserve shelves for readers and comfortable furniture for studying; a networked workstation is located in Room 215.

Arts of the Book Collection (First Floor) contains information on topics such as binding, book history, illustration, calligraphy, graphic design, paper making and decorative papers, typography and more. Contemporary examples of artists' books and fine printing are housed alongside more traditional publications.

Babylonian Collection (SML 318-327) houses the largest assemblage of cuneiform inscriptions in the United States, and one of the five largest in the world. The Collection also maintains a library on Assyriology (the study of ancient Mesopotamia), Hittitology (ancient Anatolia, roughly equivalent to modern Turkey), and Near Eastern archaeology.

Manuscripts and Archives Department (First Floor) maintains materials from a wide array of institutions, persons, and subject areas. Most of these areas have a strong link to Yale, either to the institution itself; to the faculty, students, alumni, and other members of the Yale community; or to areas in which Yale has had strong teaching and research interest. Its prominent collections include the Edward Mandell House Collection (over 200 linear ft.); the Crawford Theater Collection (over 460 linear ft.); the Numismatic Collection; and the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, which currently holds more than 4,100 testimonies (over 10,000 hours of videotape) from Holocaust survivors and witnesses in New Haven, Connecticut.

Map Collection (Seventh Floor), one of the largest university collections of maps in the United States, is geographically comprehensive and consists of over 200,000 map sheets, 3,000 atlases, and 900 reference books. The Collection receives maps and charts on deposit from the U.S. government agencies, and also houses approximately 15,000 rare (pre-1850) sheet maps.

Microform Reading Room (Basement) contains Sterling Library's extensive microform and microfiche collections. The collection includes backruns for various newspapers, historical document sets, area studies resources, ERIC documents, declassified government documents, and more. A database of newpaper microforms at Yale allows one to search by city, state/country, year, and other criteria.

Newspaper Reading Room (First Floor) houses the most current editions of newspapers from all over the world. U.S. titles are shelved on the left side of the Newspaper Room, arranged alphabetically by city, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to the Yale Bulletin and Calendar. Foreign titles are shelved on the right side of the room by broad geographic region, and then alphabetically by country, city, and title. Back issues of U.S. papers and Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language papers are located in the back of the room.

Philosophy Study Philosophy Study (SML 610) contains the most recent 30 years of several heavily used philosophy journals and critical editions of the works of major philosophers, as well as important secondary literature and a small reference collection.

EDITORIAL PROJECTS

Boswell Editions (SML 331A) publishes the papers of James Boswell (1740-1795) in two separate editions: a popular series devoted to Boswell's voluminous private journals, and a comprehensive scholarly Research Edition comprising the correspondence and the manuscript of the Life of Samuel Johnson as well as the journals.

Papers of Benjamin Franklin (SML 230) is a comprehensive, annotated edition of the writings of Benjamin Franklin. The archive includes some 30,000 photocopies of all known correspondence either to or from Franklin. Started in 1954, the project has published thirty-six volumes to date, out of a projected forty-six.

Wing STC Revision Project (SML 607)

Yale Center for Parliamentary History (SML 333) has two objectives: first, to edit and publish the proceedings in the Stuart parliaments; and second, to make the source materials collected at the Center available to scholars and students.