Current Yale students, staff and faculty may reserve and check out media equipment, including cameras and camera lenses, video cameras, digital recorders, and microphones.
Bass Library
Find us in the heart of Cross Campus, with comfortable, flexible study spaces, media equipment, and more.
The Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Library is connected to Sterling Memorial Library via a tunnel from the Wright Reading Room, below the Sterling Library nave. Natural light flows in from two sunken courtyards. Explore Bass to find books recommended by students highlighting underrepresented voices through the Reading Resilience Project, check out media equipment, browse the Graphic Novel Collection, and much more.
Student Technology Support
Faculty, staff, and students can walk in for help with their technology needs at the ITS Walk-in support locations.
Check Out Your Course Reserves
Course reserves are articles and books that are placed at the library to make assigned textbooks and readings for your classes available.
Visiting Bass Library
Accessibility
The building is wheelchair-accessible. An outside elevator (located in the pavilion entrance to the Thain Family Cafe and the Bass Library) will take the reader directly to the Bass Library.
To get to the Sterling Memorial Library from the Bass Library, readers with wheelchairs should take the elevator one level up to the tunnel connecting Bass Library and Sterling Memorial Library. Once through the tunnel, in the Wright Reading Room, turn left to the elevator and proceed up to the main level and the Sterling Memorial Library nave.
Inside Bass Library, there are two reservable, ADA-compliant individual study rooms, located on the courtyard level by Thain Cafe. Patrons can reserve these rooms for up to 4 hours, once per day: Reserve a space.
Collections
Bass holds a wide range of titles in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, arts, law and medicine. Selected titles in Bass may be duplicated in other Yale Library collections or available as e-books. The collection also includes books recommended by students through engagement programs like the Reading Resilience Project, which aims to highlight underrepresented voices.
In addition, several smaller collections on the Courtyard Level are designed to foster student engagement with print books. The Graphic Novel Collection is an actively developed collection of primarily English-language graphic novels including classics of the genre. Additional graphic novel collections are shelved in Sterling Memorial Library.
Directions
From the New Haven Green or Phelps Gate on Old Campus, take College Street north to Elm Street. Make a left onto Elm Street. Go past Hopper College and Berkeley College (on your right). At High Street, turn right and follow the cement pathway. Sterling Memorial Library will be to the left; and the Women’s Table sculpture on your right. Turn right and walk down the stairs. Enter the Bass Library from the pavilion on your left.
Library Instruction & Workshops
- Faculty and teaching assistants may request library instruction for their class. Place an instruction request.
- We offer online and in-person workshops on how to use find materials, organize citations, and create bibliographies. View workshop schedule and register.
- For research assistance on site, the offices of librarians Emily Horning (C80A) and Kelly Blanchat (C81A) are on the Courtyard Level.
Spaces
Choose from a wide variety of work and study spaces, including soft seating, tables, study pods, standing desks, and reservable group workspaces. Outdoor tables are available in both courtyards from opening to dusk, weather permitting. Other options include:
Group Study Rooms
L30 A, B, C and D; L34 A, B, C and D and L03 and L04 are on the Lower Level and may be reserved by groups of two or more people. These spaces offer a variety of soft seating, long tables for meetings, and LCD screens with connections for laptops. Reserve a group study room in Bass.
Individual Study Rooms
Small study rooms, suitable for one to two people, are available on both the Courtyard Level and Lower Level. These rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis. On the Courtyard-level two ADA-accessible individual study rooms (C10F and C12A) may be reserved. Book an ADA-accessible small study room. ADA-accessible study carrels are available on both levels.
Classrooms and Teaching Spaces
L01 (A and/or B) and L06 (A and/or B) may be reserved by library staff in two-hour increments until 5 p.m, Monday through Friday. After 5 p.m. and on weekends, students may reserve these rooms for study or meetings. Please reserve through schedule.yale.edu.
L70, L71, L72, and L73 are seminar type classroom spaces with seating for 12-18 people. Reserve classrooms L70-L73 through the University Registrar.
Technology
- Printers, copiers and scanners are available on both levels. Workstations equipped with specialty software are available for use by Yale community members on both levels.
- Yale ITS offers Yale community members software and hardware support for personal computers and Yale-owned computers. Visit the Technology Support Center on the Courtyard Level in Thain Café (just outside the library doors).
- Current Yale students, staff and faculty may reserve and check out media equipment, including cameras and camera lenses, video cameras, digital recorders, and microphones.
