Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in the context of "Bay Psalm Book"

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex, hand-written in an unknown script referred to as Voynichese. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438). Stylistic analysis has indicated the manuscript may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are still debated, but currently scholars lack the translation(s) and context needed to either properly entertain or eliminate any of the possibilities. Hypotheses range from a script for a natural language or constructed language, an unreadable code, cypher, or other form of cryptography, or perhaps a hoax, reference work (i.e. folkloric index or compendium), glossolalia or work of fiction (e.g. science fantasy or mythopoeia, metafiction, speculative fiction).

The first confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, a 17th-century alchemist from Prague. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912. The manuscript consists of around 240 pages, but there is evidence that some of the pages are missing. The text is written from left to right, and some pages are foldable sheets of varying sizes. Most of the pages have fantastical illustrations and diagrams, some crudely coloured, with sections of the manuscript showing people, unidentified plants and astrological symbols. Since 1969, it has been held in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In 2020, Yale University published the manuscript online in its entirety in their digital library.

Margaret Caroline Anderson (November 24, 1886 – October 19, 1973) was the American founder, editor and publisher of the art and literary magazine The Little Review, which published a collection of modern American, English and Irish writers between 1914 and 1929. The periodical is most noted for introducing many prominent American and British writers of the 20th century, such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, in the United States and publishing the first thirteen chapters of James Joyce's then-unpublished novel Ulysses.

A large collection of Anderson's papers on Gurdjieff's teaching is preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new “Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 million volumes housed in fifteen university buildings and is the third-largest academic library system in North America and the second-largest housed on a singular campus.

The centerpiece of the library system is the Sterling Memorial Library, a Collegiate Gothic building constructed in 1931 and containing the main library offices, the university archives, a music library, and 3.5 million volumes. The library is also known for its major collection of rare books, housed primarily in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library as well as the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, the Lillian Goldman Law Library, and the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut. Many schools and departments at Yale also maintain their own collections, comprising twelve on-campus facilities and an off-campus shelving facility.

Frederick W. Beinecke (1887–1971) was an American philanthropist who was the founder of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

He was the son of one of the main financiers and one of three co-founders, with Harry S. Black and hotelier Fred Sterry, of the Plaza Hotel. He lived in Cranford, New Jersey with his wife Carrie Regina Sperry Beinecke, who was the daughter of William Miller Sperry, from the mid-1910s to the mid-1920s. He was the father of William Sperry Beinecke and grandfather of Frances Beinecke.

Hewitt University Quadrangle, commonly known as Beinecke Plaza, is a plaza at the center of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the home of the university's administration, main auditorium, and dining facilities. The quadrangle was created with the construction of the university's Bicentennial Buildings and Woodbridge Hall in 1901. Until 1917, it was known as University Court. The completion of the Beinecke Library created subterranean library facilities beneath the courtyard, establishing the present appearance of the paved plaza and sunken courtyard.

Gordon Bunshaft FAIA (May 9, 1909 – August 6, 1990) was an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century. A partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Bunshaft joined the firm in 1937 and remained with it for more than 40 years. His notable buildings include Lever House in New York, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 140 Broadway (Marine Midland Grace Trust Co.), and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Branch Bank in New York, the first post-war "transparent" bank on the East Coast.