What began as an idea voiced at a dinner table following last year’s Lewis Walpole Library lecture developed into a full-day workshop which was held on the Thursday of Yale’s October recess. The workshop introduced five Yale graduate students from the English and Comparative Literature Departments to the LWL and its resources. The students had an opportunity to work with eighteenth-century printed and manuscript texts and graphic materials, some items pre-selected for them and others identified and requested by the students themselves. The students thought through the kinds of questions to ask when confronting primary sources; they learned how to search Yale’s catalogs and finding aids and key electronic databases and websites; they were introduced to useful reference sources; they were introduced to looking at graphic materials; and they immersed themselves in exploring the Library’s rich holdings. Feedback following the class was very positive with such comments as: “It really was both interesting and extremely useful!… this trip has made me feel much more confident in navigating archives!” and “As a first year in the English program, having time to explore the archives was ideal and the presentations on the special features of the archive were informative and fun.”