Yale University Libraries are stewards of vast collections of materials. These materials cover a wide variety of formats, and range from the fourteen hundreds to present day. As a steward of US Federal Depository Collections, the library encourages civic engagement throughout the year.

For access to a mini-constitution-please click here.

Printed copies will be available at Marx Library’s iDesk starting September 16 through September 30, 2022, while supplies last.

This Constitution and Citizenship Day, Yale University Library is celebrating the US Constitution as it relates to data and information. A series of workshops will highlight government information, the US Census, and text mining with the Constitution as a source for analysis.

• Finding and Using US Government Information and Data (11:00 am, Sept 16) The US Constitution formed the basis of US Government, and subsequently, the offices, agencies and departments that generate hundreds of law, reports, documents and data sets each year.  Most government information is openly available but is not always intuitive to find.  This workshop will introduce major starting points for accessing government information, as well as options for organization and analysis once you have found information or data of interest.

• Finding and Using US Census Data (3:00 pm, Sept 21) - Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution established the requirement of a census.  This workshop will explore ways to access, search, and use data generated by the US Census Bureau.  Extending access and analysis to Excel, R and available APIs will also be discussed.

• Introduction to Text Mining in R (1:00 pm, Sept 30) – Look at the US Constitution through the lens of text mining! Using R, basic analyses will be performed on the text of the US Constitution, including word frequencies and clustering as a way of exploring text as data.