Research > Digital Collection

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• General information
• Search tips
• Searching and using the Digital Collection
• Other digital collections at Yale

General Information

The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection presents images from the Library's collections. The main focus of the Digital Collection is the Library's world-renowned collection of English caricatures and political satirical prints from the late-seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Included are works by Bunbury, Woodward, Gillray, Rowlandson, and Newton, among others.

The Digital Collection has expanded to encompass prints, drawings, and watercolors related to Horace Walpole's collection and house at Strawberry Hill. Material is added to the Digital Collection regularly. Recent additions have included Walpole's copy of Vertue's Portfolio of Original Drawings of Heads, Antiquities, Monuments, Views &c. (Hazen 3581), and Richard Bull's extra-illustrated copy of The Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill near Twickenham.

The over 11,000 digital images are presented through technology developed by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and have been processed by Luna Imaging to enable users to examine each image in minute detail. This ongoing project to provide increased access to the Library's rich holdings will, in time, include full catalog records available through Orbis for each item and will take advantage of Luna Imaging's Insight software to allow users to manage and work with the images online.

The Library does not require registration to view the images in the Digital Collection. The Library's policy and information on copyright and photoduplication of the images are available at:
http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/html/research/rights_reproductions.html.

It is necessary to obtain authorization to use images from the Digital Collection and to notify the Library when links are made to the site.

Search Tips

The information about each image in the Walpole Digital Collection now includes:

• Brief (often incomplete) title
• Artist, if known
• The Lewis Walpole Library call number

A Keyword query searches these fields for exact matches of the word(s) entered.

Because the information accompanying the images is limited to title, artist, notes indicating the volume in which the work is found, call number, and unique identifying number, searching is limited to keyword and call number.

Words in the title are spelled as they appear on the print.

Searching for a particular subject of a print is successful only so far as the search term appears as one of the words in the title, artist's name, or notes.

Keyword searches can be broadened to include any or all of the words entered.

Certain words, including articles, prepositions, and symbols, cause problems in keyword searches and will result in an error message.

With a Call Number query it is possible to find images by date of publication because the first element of a print’s call number is the last three digits of the date of publication (e.g., “760” for a publication date of 1760).

Planning is underway to include much more data in future versions of the Digital Collection; complete artist, title, and publication information, as well as subject terms and British Museum Catalog references, will be available and will be searchable.

Meanwhile, new images are added each month to the present version.

For detailed instructions on Searching and Using the Digital Collection click here

Other Digital Collections at Yale:

• List of collections at Yale
• Search multiple digital collections at Yale

Additional information about locating, searching, and working with digital image collections:

• Search for Images (Art and Architecture Library)
• Using a Digital Library Collection (Library Systems Office)
• Digital Library Collections FAQ (Library Systems Office)