Why study a photo when you can hold the real thing? Yale’s libraries and museums preserve historically relevant books, manuscripts, art, and artifacts from around the world. Maximizing access to these treasures is a priority. And when students encounter original materials in object classrooms, discovery and learning come alive.

Our next step: marrying the dynamic stories, research, and materials that span all of Yale’s libraries and galleries. Today, a search at the Art Gallery might turn up works from the Société Anonyme, a pioneering organization founded by modern artists Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray. This same search would overlook the group’s correspondence and archives, which are held at the Beinecke library. A university-wide digital catalog would capture both.

This tool—the first of its kind for collections of this scale—will make Yale’s cultural treasures more discoverable and accessible than ever.