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Statement on Potentially Harmful Content: Home

Yale Library's statement on potentially harmful content in our collections and catalogs.

Statement on Potentially Harmful Content

Yale University Library’s collections document human expression and lived experience. Some content within our collections contains images or language that library users may find harmful, offensive, or inappropriate. Some of these images and language are now recognized as offensive and unacceptable; some may have been viewed as unacceptable when they were created. Inclusion of such content in this digital library is not an endorsement of its language, images, or ideology. Yale University Library openly rejects oppressive views reflected in our collections, and we believe in the importance of fostering access to our collections in a responsible and transparent way that preserves historical evidence of social conditions and attitudes.

 

Yale University Library strives to describe and provide access to all the content in its collections in ways that are inclusive, respectful, and do not cause harm to those who interact with the collections. This includes people who create, use, and are represented in the collections Yale stewards.

 

We welcome your feedback on the words we use to describe the content in our collections and how we provide access to those collections. We encourage you to contact the repository with your questions.

 

For more information on how Yale University Library staff describes archival collections, please see the Yale Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.