Welcome back to my Joy of Traveling series!
Since my last post, I've flown to Boston, Connecticut, and New York on a thrilling adventure, trying delicious lobster, watching Broadway's Hamilton, and performing at Carnegie Hall.
Today I'll be writing about a special library that I came upon when visiting Yale University. This library is called the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
(All photos included are photos I took at the library!)
So what makes this library so fascinating?
Besides the gorgeous interior, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library displays its books on a six-story glass enclosed tower of book shelves. Not only that, it houses over 1 million volumes, millions of manuscript pages, thousands of papyri, photographs, maps, art objects, and much more.
On the outside, the library has giant windows made of thick Vermont marble panels which protect the library from being damaged from direct sunlight. Simultaneously, the marble also absorbs and diffuses the sunlight into warm hues that it casts on the inside of the library.
Fun fact: a Yale student told me that when studying in the winter, students often pressed their hands on the marble panels because the panels would be warm from absorbing the light!
Next to the library is a large courtyard that features a unique sculpture garden by Isamu Noguchi. The sculptures are representations of the earth (a pyramid sculpture,) the sun (a sphere,) and chance (a cube; perhaps chance is represented as a dice?) The sculptor described this garden as being “nowhere, yet somehow familiar. Its size is fictive, of infinite space or cloistered containment.”
All of these elements, from the library design to the adjacent sculpture garden, tie together the magical learning environment that Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library brings.
The library also holds very valuable and intriguing books such as the Voynich Manuscript (commonly deemed to be the world's most mysterious book,) a Gutenberg Bible (which I got to see on display!!) and my personal favorite, John James Audubon's Birds of America.
Seeing Birds of America in person took my breath away. It was a huge volume with hand-drawn watercolor paintings of intricate and colorful birds, complete with detailed descriptions. Only 120 copies of this book are known to exist, and Yale owns two of them!
I had first read about Birds of America in one of my favorite books, All the Light We Cannot See. In this book, one of the characters, Frederick, is an avid lover of birds and owns a copy of Birds of America. At the time, I had no idea Birds of America was an actual book; I thought it was a book the author of All the Light We Cannot See had made up for the sake of the plot. The book was described very vividly and mystically so I had always wanted to see it in real life.
You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the very book on display at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
(Birds of America; all photos included are photos I took at the library!)
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