Teaching with Slides: The History of the Visual Resources Collection at Yale
Visual Resources Center
Slide Library, Street Hall, Yale University: Slide room
The Visual Resources Collection, also known as the Slide Library, was its own separate entity from the late 1940s until the early 2000s. The Slide Library was located at Street Hall (now part of the Yale University Art Gallery) and contained the physical slides and photographs in filing cabinets, staff offices, as well as the light tables and equipment to facilitate access to materials. In 2008, the Visual Resources Center moved from Street Hall to the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library. This move was tied to the changing landscape of the slide library, the expansion of the Yale Art Gallery, as well as the renovation project planned at the Art+Architecture building that would make room for VRC staff and services, but not for all of the slides and photos.
Yale University Slide Library--Hand Drawn Map 1973
In the early 2000s, faculty began sourcing digital lecture materials and were less dependent on sourcing analog slides. In addition, Yale Library participated in the Integrated Digital Images Resources (IDIR) project which led to the digitization of 130,000 of the slides. Today, there are over 300,000 digitized VRC slides accessible via Yale's Findit database and Artstor. Arts Library staff continue to support students and faculty in art history research through a variety of research services, including assistance in finding digital images, making recommendations for research file organization, and providing resources for copyright and fair use.