Enfilade

The YCBA’s complete art collection, including nearly 50,000 works on paper, is now accessible online

The Yale Center for British Art is pleased to announce that its entire art collection is now available online. Visitors to the website can search the Center’s collection of more than two thousand paintings, two hundred sculptures, and nearly fifty thousand prints and drawings from the Elizabethan period to the present. This is the first time the Center’s complete holdings of works on paper, the most important and comprehensive collection of its kind outside the United Kingdom, have been are searchable online. The Center has also made available more than thirteen hundred records of its historic frame collection, among the first museums in the world to do so. These frames join other collections at the Center that have been made available online, including a sizable portion of the rare books and manuscripts collection, and the entire Reference Library.

More than one-third of the new prints and drawings records include high-resolution images, and the Center offers free downloads of works that are in the public domain as high-resolution TIFs. This update to the online collection also includes the release of expanded data, such as bibliographic citations, for the records of specific works of art. More than six thousand citations, including books, journals, newspaper articles, auction catalogues, and online resources, have been added to four hundred objects to date, with more being added daily.

Aside from making its collections accessible online, the Center has partnered with Google Art Project and is working with other platforms to allow broader audiences to discover British art. It has also created a data provider that allows third parties to harvest the Center’s collections for use in their own content platforms. Those interested in harvesting the collections as either extensible mark-up language (XML) or linked open data can now find simple instructions for how to do so at britishart.yale.edu/collections/usingcollections/ technology. The Center is particularly focused on the potential of linked open data to disseminate its collections, to expand the possibilities of integration between related collections, and to support
opportunities for developing new technologies for research in the realm of
cultural heritage.

Good news for anyone planning to make use of the YCBA in 2014, but for the summer and fall of 2013, a bit of extra planning is in order. -CH

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Summer and Fall 2013

The first phase of a refurbishment project at the Yale Center for British Art has been scheduled for summer and fall 2013, and there will be limited availability of some services and partial closures on the second and third floors, as noted below. The permanent collection on the fourth floor will remain on view throughout this period. It is expected that the project will be completed by early January 2014.

The Departments of Prints & Drawings and Rare Books & Manuscripts will be temporarily relocating their offices within the building, and the Study Room will be closed from June through December 2013. The collections will be transferred to other parts of the building over the summer of 2013.

As soon as these transfers are completed, staff will make every effort to accommodate the needs of faculty, students, and scholars. However, access to the collections will be limited during the fall term and by appointment only. Requests for materials will require at least two weeks advance notice (ycba.prints@yale.edu). The Center will continue to accommodate classes using works from the Prints & Drawings and Rare Books & Manuscripts collections by special arrangement with the staff; to discuss your requirements, please contact Gillian Forrester, Curator of Prints & Drawings, and Elisabeth Fairman, Senior Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts.

The Center will be unable to host Visiting Scholars during the refurbishment project. Please note that during this period, the second- and third-floor galleries will be closed, as will the Library Court. The second-floor classroom will remain accessible for teaching; please contact Jane Nowosadko, Senior Manager of Programs, to check availablity. The Reference Library will keep normal hours, although there may be some disruptions over the summer. Details will be circulated as they become known. Tours of the collection will be offered as normal, although requests need to be made two weeks in advance (ycba.education@yale.edu).

There will be a regular roster of programs in the Center’s Lecture Hall throughout the refurbishment project. It is expected that normal services in the Study Room will resume by early January 2014.

Contact Details

• Requests for materials from Prints and Drawings and Rare Books and Manuscripts should be made at least two weeks in advance by e-mailing ycba.prints@yale.edu.
• To discuss requirements for classes contact the curators: Gillian Forrester, Curator of Prints & Drawings, gillian.forrester@yale.edu, Elisabeth Fairman, Senior Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, elisabeth.fairman@yale.edu
• Inquiries about the availability of the second-floor classroom and the Docent Room should be e-mailed to Jane Nowosadko, Senior Manager of Programs, jane.nowosadko@yale.edu
• Inquiries about the Reference Library can be addressed to Kraig Binkowski, Chief Librarian, kraig.binkowski@yale.edu
• For information about the Visiting Scholar program for 2013–14, please visit britishart.yale.edu/research/visiting-scholars, or contact Lisa Ford, Associate Head of Research, lisa.ford@yale.edu.