A Penn Libraries milestone was reached on May 3, 2016, when the number of electronic titles in Franklin Catalog surpassed the number of print titles. Franklin Catalog describes the Penn Libraries collections. Its bibliographic records identify more than 7.6 million books and documents in print and electronic formats, journals and other periodicals in print and …
Note: Web address originally referenced has been updated. Please see end of entry for new web address Philadelphia, PA, March 3rd, 2016—The Penn Libraries is excited to announce the debut of the online home for its Holy Land collections. The Holy Land Collections website features a wide range of special and general collections related to …
As we near the 11th anniversary of ScholarlyCommons, we are also getting closer to yet another milestone in ScholarlyCommons history: 10 million downloads. With over 25,000 objects and over 2 million downloads a year, this milestone is closer than you might expect – likely just a few months away! Watch the download count rise as …
The inscription is a note to Henry VIII from wife number four of six, Anne of Cleves, written in a 1533 book of hours from the Folger Shakespeare Library (STC 15982). Continue reading at //provenanceonlineproject.wordpress.com/2
In honor of the visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia this week, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies is sharing a number of the Penn Libraries’ Pope-related items. The featured image is from Ms. Codex 85, Bullarium Augustinianum, (fol. 1r) written in Italy around 1506 (per a note on the manuscript, fol. 124v). Ms. Codex …
PHILADELPHIA, PA July 2015—They are treasures that have survived centuries and even millennia: one of the world’s oldest fragments of the gospel of Saint Matthew; the first Bible printed in the Americas, in the Native American language of Massachuset; a New Testament Bible published in twelve languages in Nuremberg, Germany, 1599; the earliest version of …
PHILADELPHIA, PA, July 6th, 2015 – Thanks to the generosity of alumnus Jeff Seltzer (W’78) and his wife Annie, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries is proud to announce the eight winners of the 2015 Seltzer Family Digital Media Awards: Alicia Chon (W ’16), DeDe DeDe (LPS ’16), Carolina English (C ’16), Taylor Evensen (C ’16), …
This summer, the Penn Libraries will begin the construction of the last phase of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. The construction project will take place on the fifth floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. The project will provide two structural benefits to the Libraries and the Penn community: a secure, …
This post was written by the Penn Libraries Bass Teaching and Learning Fellow, Catrice Barrett On Monday, June 16, I had the privilege of delivering the commencement address to the graduating class of Kensington International Business High School (KIBHS). The honor of speaking to such a promising group of young students is one that I owe to Matt Pilecki …
In September of 2013, the Penn Libraries received from Doris Gundert Balant a gift of 47 home movies from the family of Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985). This past fall the films were reformatted to digital video, helping to prolong the life of the originals, while simultaneously providing broad access to their content. Now …
An annotated English Bible that belonged to Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651-1720) and passed down through his family for three centuries has returned to Philadelphia. Pastorius, credited with being the founder of Germantown (now part of Philadelphia), emigrated from Germany in 1683 and quickly became an important figure in the new colony. This Bible joins two …
Penn has completed digitization of the Japanese Juvenile Fiction Collection at Penn Libraries, dating from the late Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) periods. These are small, mass-market books never intended for long-term use, so the digitization not only shares full copies of these books with the worldwide research community, but also preserves them for posterity. …
The Recipes Project interview of Mitch Fraas and Katie Rawson on Penn Libraries’ collection of books on cooking and the history of food at http://recipes.hypotheses.org/4479
The Ray Evans papers document the life and career of Hollywood lyricist and Penn alum Ray Evans. Graduating from Penn in 1936, Evans went on to form the song-writing team of Livingston & Evans, with fellow Penn alum, Jay Livingston. Continue reading at https://pennrare.wordpress.com
The Penn Libraries now offers access to two new streaming film and video platforms, Projectr EDU and Docuseek. Both platforms feature quality documentary and narrative films from a number of leading independent distributors, which enhances the number of acclaimed, engaging films available to members of the Penn community for on-demand viewing. Projectr EDU is a … Continue reading
The restricted access policy for the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center and the Fisher Fine Arts Library will be in effect during the reading period and final exams, December 10 – 19, 2019. Access to VPDLC and FFAL during this period will be restricted to individuals who hold one of the following credentials: A PennCard A … Continue reading
Jiaqi Song was born on one continent (Asia, in Beijing), grew up on another (Europe, in Rome), and now attends college on a third (North America, in Philadelphia). Fittingly enough, he’s a second-year student in Wharton’s Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. In addition to being a globetrotter, Song is also a videographer, bibliophile, … Continue reading
Diversity in the Stacks aims to build library collections that represent and reflect the University’s diverse population. Language learners make up a large proportion of Penn Libraries patrons who might be interested in our foreign-language collections. However, academic monographs and document collections from the 19th century may strike many as too intimidating for reading practice. … Continue reading
Collections of More Than 11,000 Items Reveal Four Centuries of American Jewish History The University of Pennsylvania Libraries has received a series of gifts from Arnold and Deanne Kaplan, including the world’s first endowed position in Judaica digital humanities, totaling $12 million. The Kaplans’ contributions also comprise an in-kind gift of collections of Americana and … Continue reading
On December 3, Megan C. Kassabaum will present at the Libraries’ final Research Tea of the semester. An assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, Kassabaum also serves as Penn Museum’s Weingarten Assistant Curator for North America. Her wide-ranging research interests include food and feasting, ceramic technology, social organization, and public and museum archaeology. For … Continue reading
The ney flute’s airy, organic melodies are a characteristic element of Turkish classical music, though the melodies don’t come easily. This end-blown woodwind instrument, crafted from a single reed, is notoriously difficult to master, requiring weeks of consistent practice for a novice to produce one recognizable note. Juan Castrillón is a fifth-year doctoral student in Ethnomusicology … Continue reading
This post first appeared on the Columbia University Libraries Spotlight Blog. The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation is pleased to announce the launch of the Web Archive of Independent News Sites on Turkish Affairs. Developed by librarians within the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, the archive documents and preserves online news outlets about Turkey that are not controlled … Continue reading
The Libraries have added two African American newspapers to our collection on the Proquest Black Newspapers platform. The Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005) is the oldest and largest black newspaper in the western United States and the largest African-American owned newspaper in the U.S. It is also the only paid-circulation African American newspaper in Southern California, upon … Continue reading
The University of Pennsylvania Libraries announces the acquisition of the archive of renowned artist Ashley Bryan, an internationally recognized children’s book author and illustrator, poet, and humanitarian. Bryan’s archive came to the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Penn Libraries through the Ashley Bryan Center, which has represented and preserved … Continue reading
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