Yale's Special
Collections have pooled their resources to create an exhibit in the SML corridor
and elevator display cases.
"A Timeline
of the Human Record"
This exhibit
traces the evolution of media used by humans to record and disseminate information,
drawing samples from many of Yale's Special Collections. From clay tablets
to papyrus scrolls, the codex, handwritten manuscripts, newspapers, postcards,
all the way through to digital media, humans have constantly been developing
new ways to spread information in an effective and economical manner. Sometimes
new media developments have had a radical effect on the future of human communication;
at other times humans have rejected the economical and efficient in order
to present information in an idiosyncratic manner. Yale's Special Collections
contain nearly every type of media produced by humankind. Materials have been
provided for the exhibit from the Arts Library, Babylonian Collection, Divinity
Library, Franklin Collection, Medical Historical Library, Historical Sound
Recordings Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Map Collection, Music Library,
and Oral History American Music. For more information about these collections
see: http://www.library.yale.edu/special_collections/spclist.html.
