Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 17, 2004|Volume 33, Number 3

Grants will support two ongoing
preservation projects at Yale Library

The Yale University Library has received two grants that will support its ongoing preservation efforts.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission awarded the library a grant in the amount of $196,908 to support the testing of a software system called the Fedora (Flexible and Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture) as a tool for preserving electronic records in the Yale University Archives, part of the library's Manuscripts and Archives department, and the Digital Collections and Archives of Tufts University.

A second award, a Getty Grant in the amount of $177,702, will support the cataloging and preserving of the library's extensive collection of drawings, specifications, photographs and other materials by Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), considered one of the 20th century's most influential architects.

Preserving digital records

Yale's Electronic Records Archive Project will work in conjunction with Tufts to discover a method of capturing and maintaining digital records using Fedora. The project is also concerned with assessing the program's ability to trace the authenticity of the information and to manage data of varying sources and formats.

Archivists at Yale and Tufts hope that Fedora will provide a secure storage structure for electronic records, which, like paper records, deteriorate over time. Electronic information decays with age from damage to the physical storage systems and from loss of integrity in the electronic data. Although short-term issues have been addressed in past decades, a method for dependable, permanent storage and management of electronic records has yet to be discovered.

"This is an important grant for Manuscripts and Archives," says Steven Yearl, the department's archivist for systems and digital resources. "It advances a primary strategic effort of ours: that of capturing and preserving the record of Yale University in the digital age."

The grant support may enable Yale and Tufts archivists to develop a system that may function as a prototype for other universities.

Cataloging and preserving the Saarinen collection

In the 1970s, Saarinen's wife, Aline, donated to Yale a number of the architect's sketches, photographs and other materials documenting his career. However, the bulk of the architect's papers remained with his successor firm, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, until 2002, when the firm donated Saarinen's materials to the library.

Despite Saarinen's wide reputation and influence, comparatively little study of the architect's life and work has occurred because personal materials have heretofore been unavailable. Since the arrival of the Saarinen collection to Yale, however, it has become one of the most heavily used collections in Manuscripts and Archives, supporting a number of Yale courses as well as numerous scholarly and engineering research projects.

Richard Szary, the Carrie S. Beinecke Director of Manuscripts and Archives, notes that the Getty Grant will support the great interest that the donation of the Saarinen collection has generated.

"The Getty has given us the resources needed to ensure long-term preservation and access to the collection for the many students, architectural historians, preservationists and architects who are interested in understanding the design approach and techniques that Saarinen pioneered," he said.

"The Getty is proud to support Yale in its efforts to ensure access to the Saarinen collection," says Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Grant program. "These are materials of enormous significance to the history of 20th-century architecture."

Saarinen, who immigrated to the United States from Finland in 1923, studied architecture at Yale, receiving a B.F.A. degree in 1934 and joining his father's practice. After his father's death in 1950, Saarinen started his own firm. During his short tenure as an independent architect, he designed an array of prominent buildings, including several which have become cultural as well as architectural icons.

Perhaps best known for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) in St. Louis, Missouri, Saarinen designed several buildings for his alma mater, including Ingalls Rink and the complex that houses Morse and Ezra Stiles colleges. His other designs include the TWA Terminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York City; the Terminal Building at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.; and Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.

The Getty Grant Program is part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The program provides support to institutions and individuals throughout the world in fields that are aligned most closely with the Getty's strategic priorities. Among the largest philanthropic supporters of the visual arts in the country, the Getty offers grants to fund a variety of projects in research, conservation, and education and professional development.

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