Library

Divinity Library & Collections

The Divinity Library holds a pre-eminent collection for the study of global missionary movements. Our collections are also strong in these areas: biblical literature; Christian theology; the history of Christianity; students in the Trowbridge Reference Room. Our collections now total: more than 600,000 volumes of monographs, serials, and pamphlets; more than 270,000 pieces of microforms; more than 6,000 linear feet of manuscript and archival materials; We also have significant electronic collections, and growing collections of other non-print resources.

Yale University Library

Yale’s libraries have been developed over a period of three centuries. Throughout its history, the University has devoted a significant proportion of its resources to the building of collections that have an international reputation and that are matched by those of few other universities in the world.

The Yale University Library comprises three central libraries—Sterling Memorial Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Library—and twelve school and department libraries as well as many special collections. Third-largest among the university libraries in the United States, it includes more than fifteen million volumes and information in all media, ranging from ancient papyri to early printed books to electronic databases. Students have access to the physical collections and study spaces of all the libraries at Yale, as well as to a full array of online and digital resources. For additional information, please visit www.library.yale.edu.

Other Yale Resources and Galleries

Resources found elsewhere in the University bearing upon the work of YDS include approximately 100,000 volumes classed as religion in the Sterling Memorial Library, with another 100,000 in the Library Shelving Facility. This collection contains a wealth of scholarly periodicals and publications of learned societies, the source material of the Protestant Reformation, Byzantine and Orthodox literature, early Americana, and older books acquired in the past. A primary collection of Mormonism is in the Collection of Western Americana, together with related materials. Other collections important to YDS are Judaica; the American Oriental Society; and the Lowell Mason Collection of Hymnology in the School of Music Library. Early English church history imprints and the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters are found in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. There is an excellent collection on Cardinal John Henry Newman and the Tractarian Movement. Christian art is in the Arts Library; archaeology bearing on biblical studies and Christian origins is found in association with archaeology, ancient Near East, and classics. Resources to support the various area programs at Yale—East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Slavic and East European—are invaluable for the study of missions, non-Christian religions and culture, and world Christianity. The collections of the University illustrating the monuments and literature of Assyria and Babylonia are housed in Sterling Memorial Library.

The Yale University Art Gallery houses a collection of Palestinian pottery, acquired through the generosity of the late Mrs. Francis Wayland. Collections obtained through the excavations of the Yale–British Expedition to Gerasa, Transjordania, and the Yale–French Academy Expedition to Dura-Europos are also located in the Art Gallery.