Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (BRBL) was a 1963 gift of the Beinecke family. The building was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft[1] of the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill,[2] and is the largest building in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. It is located at 121 Wall Street in the center of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, in Hewitt Quadrangle, which is more commonly referred to as "Beinecke Plaza".
A six-story above-ground tower of book stacks is surrounded by a windowless rectangular building with walls made of a translucent Danby marble, which transmit subdued lighting and provide protection from direct light. The public exhibition hall surrounding the glass stack tower displays contains, among other things, one of the 48 extant copies of the Gutenberg Bible. Two floors extend under Hewitt Quadrangle. The first level down, the "Court" level, centers on a sunken courtyard featuring sculptures by Isamu Noguchi that are said to represent time (the pyramid), sun (the circle), and chance (the cube). This level also features a reading room for researchers, offices and book storage areas. The lower level of the building, two floors below ground, has compact shelving for books and archives.
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In the late 19th century the rarer and more valuable books of the Library of Yale College were placed on special shelving at the Old Library (now Dwight Hall). These were moved to the Rare Book Room collection of Sterling Memorial Library when it opened in 1930. When the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library opened its doors on October 14, 1963, it had become the home of the volumes from the Sterling Memorial Library Rare Book Room, and three special collections—the Collection of American Literature, the Collection of Western Americana, and the Collection of German Literature. Shortly afterward, they were joined by the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection.
Beinecke Library became the repository for books in the Yale collection printed anywhere before 1601, books printed in Latin America before 1751, books printed in North America before 1821, newspapers and broadsides printed in the United States before 1851, European tracts and pamphlets printed before 1801, and Slavic, East European, Near and Middle Eastern books through the eighteenth century, as well as special books outside these categories.
Now, the collection spans through to the present day including such modern works as limited-edition poetry and artists' books. The library also contains thousands of linear feet of archival material, ranging from ancient papyri and medieval manuscripts to the papers of modern writers.
The holdings of the Beinecke Library include:
The glass-walled structure that holds the original core collection of the British Library (the books gifted by King George III and referred to as the King's Library within the British Library building in Euston, London), was inspired by the elegance of the Beinecke.
During the 1960s, Claes Oldenburg's sculpture "Lipstick on a Caterpillar Track" was displayed in Hewitt Quadrangle. The sculpture has since been moved to the courtyard of Morse College, one of the university's residential dormitories.
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