Jeremy Norman’sHistoryofInformation.com Exploring the History of Information and Media through Timelines
Jeremy Norman’s
The Beinicke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. Photo by Michael Marsland.
A: New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Interior view of the Beinicke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, showing the dramatic glass core of books and the exterior wall panels of translucent marble.
On October 14, 1963 the Beinicke Rare Book & Manuscript Library opened at Yale University. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Gordon Bunshaft of the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is the largest building in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. In my opinion it is the also greatest and most dramatic "temple" devoted to the display, study and preservation of rare books and manuscripts built at a university in the twentieth century.
Like the Printing and the Man of Man exhibition which coincidentally occurred in London in July 1963, the opening of the Beinicke Library reflected one of the historical peaks of recognition of the role of the physical book in the creation, distribution and storage of information.
