Exhibitions and Events of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library: Fall 2012

In September 2010, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library began a three-phase renovation, which will create a new, dramatic special collections center on the 6th floor to serve the scholarly community and the public. The new center will include the Class of 1978 Pavilion, a lecture and event space.

Ongoing construction will necessitate service changes during the 2012–2013 academic year:

• The Rosenwald exhibition gallery, the Lea Library, and the remainder of the 6th floor are closed to the public.
• The Rare Book and Manuscript Library's temporary reading room, located on the east end of the fifth floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library (room 504), is open noon–4:45pm Monday–Friday.

The Penn Libraries is pleased to announce a new permanent exhibition case devoted to the display of John James Audubon's spectacular Birds of America (1827-38). Penn's double elephant folio set of the Birds was a gift of Edwin H. Vare, Jr. in 1957-59. The page opening from the volume on display will be changed on a monthly basis.

For more information

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection of Manuscripts, donated to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries by Penn Libraries Board members Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Schoenberg (C53, WG56), embodies the great scientific and philosophical traditions of the ancient and medieval world. The manuscripts in this exhibition document the extraordinary achievements of European, Arabic, and Jewish scholars, philosophers, and the practitioners of science, medicine, and law. Often illustrated with complex diagrams and stunning imagery, these manuscripts bring to the present the intellectual legacy of the medieval past.

A 2013 thirteen-month wall calendar highlighting two of the manuscripts from the Schoenberg Collection has been produced in conjunction with this exhibition and is available for purchase through the website here.

For more information about the exhibition or to purchase a calendar

Drawing on his latest book, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr, distinguished historian R. Kent Newmyer (University of Connecticut Law School) will take us inside one of the most dramatic and important criminal trials in American history. The explosive mix of personality, politics, and law embedded in this battle of titans makes for edge-of-your-seat storytelling and provides fascinating insight into the origins of America's political and legal systems. A book signing and reception follow the lecture.

For more information and registration

The 1973 tour of China by the Philadelphia Orchestra marked an important milestone in relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Following on the heels of Richard Nixon's trip to visit Mao Zedong in 1972, the tour was a successful attempt at cultural diplomacy--the first visit to China by an American orchestra. In recognition of the fortieth anniversary of this historic tour, "Ormandy in China" reexamines the ten-day visit and places the tour in the context of the political and cultural climate of the time.

According to a 2011 Gallup Poll, nine out of ten Americans reported that they believe in God or some form of higher being. For over one thousand years, within the Western tradition, religious thinkers, philosophers, and scientists have attempted to prove or disprove the existence of God. Despite the sophisticated arguments postulated by believers and non-believers, God's existence remains unproven. During Penn's Year of Proof, we present a small exhibition selected from the Library's primary source collections, showing examples of individual works which attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God.

Drawing upon the collection of Karen and Howard Schwartz, this exhibition explores the revolution in observational science facilitated by the invention of the microscope in the late 1600s. It will also emphasize the many ways in which the microscope entered popular culture over the following centuries as a source of instruction and entertainment for a broad public. Displays include rare books, engravings, broadsides, colored images, and a selection from the Schwartzes' collection of antique microscopes.

Lesley Haas uses handmade paper as her art medium. As an extension of her papermaking, she has created artworks from fibers such as flax, cotton, sisal, African fiber, and vegetable papyrus. In addition to works that are formal explorations of these fibers, she has made objects ranging from shoes to goblets, pointe shoes, and bottles. In recent years, she has reused packaging materials, magazines, and all types of paper in developing a series entitled SCROLLS.

For more information

October 22, 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library. The Dietrich wing was added in 1966. Today, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library is still the central Penn library, and ongoing renovations have made it a center of learning, research, and teaching. To celebrate the occasion, this small exhibition features photographs of the building's construction, dedication, and early interior.

The 5th Annual Schoenberg Symposium considers the role of manuscripts in organizing and classifying knowledge through a variety of topics, including the place of the medieval library in manuscript culture, the rise and fall of the 12th-century commentary tradition, diagrams, devotional practice, poetics, and the material organization of encyclopedias and lexicons.

When novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) fictionalized the region of England in which he lived, he revived the name of a long extinct Anglo-Saxon kingdom. His Wessex was a rich combination of old and new, showing rural life under assault from industrialization. The region's monuments that were a key element of his semi-imaginary geography had already been the object of study by artists, antiquarians, historians, and archaeologists. Materials from Penn's collections exhibit the ways in which people engaged with Wessex before Hardy's time and the role Wessex has continued to play in our imagination.

Since 1998, Paul Needham has served as the Curator of the Scheide Collection at the Princeton University Library, before which he worked at Sotheby's and the Pierpont Morgan Library. He is on faculty at the University of Virginia's Rare Book School. Widely acknowledged as the leading expert on Johannes Gutenberg and the early history of printing, Dr. Needham has written or contributed to more than 90 publications. His most recent book is Galileo Makes a Book: The First Edition of Sidereus nuncius, Venice 1610 (Akademie Verlag, 2011).

Drop by to visit Penn Libraries' new state-of-the-art Special Collections Center on the 6th floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library. Tour the new Reading Room and the Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, and experience the extraordinary exhibit of medieval manuscripts, A Legacy Inscribed: The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection of Manuscripts, which will be on display in the Goldstein Gallery. Enjoy refreshments as you partake of the views of College Green, Franklin Field, and the Center City skyline. Reservations are appreciated but not required. Please RSVP HERE.