Exhibitions and Events of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library: Fall 2013

On April 19, 2013 the University of Pennsylvania Libraries will open its new Kislak Center, a transformative space for the study, use, and exhibition of the Library's distinguished special collections. With robust, visionary facilities, the Kislak Center is conceived as a dynamic library space designed to support traditional and digital scholarly pursuits; to promote the use of special collections in the classroom; and to provide a range of facilities for use by individuals and groups. Join us for our Open House April 19th.

Located on the 6th floor, both the new Reading Room and the new Goldstein Family Gallery will be open to researchers and for viewing prior to the opening of the entire Kislak Center. As of March 4th, the hours of operation will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10:00 am to 4:45 pm and Wednesday 10:00 am to 8:00 pm.

For more information email: rbml@pobox.upenn.edu or call: 215.898.7088

Annually, the Penn Libraries acquires thousands of new books, periodicals, and materials in various formats for use by students and researchers. This exhibition will showcase many of these recent acquisitions and honor our donors. Materials on display are drawn from the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Fisher Fine Arts Library, the Middle Eastern Collection, and the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

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The annual Hop will begin at the Arthur Ross Gallery and continue on to the Architectural Archives. The final stop will be the Kislak Center exhibition Recent Acquisitions. A curator will be at each exhibition site to talk with attendees. Refresh yourself at the end of the tour with hors d'oeuvres and dessert.

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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.

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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

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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.

The Penn Libraries has acquired an extraordinary collection of lithographic books printed in Fez, Morocco, during the latter half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Dr. Fawzi Abdulrazak, the leading scholar of the history of printing in Morocco and the builder of the collection, will present this remarkable material and explain its history and significance.

Enjoy never before heard recordings of songs and dances from the Penn Libraries sheet music collections, featuring such treasures as "The Roast Beef Cantata," "Bow Wow Wow," "Oh Men What Silly Things You Are," and the "Hippopotamus Polka." The music is performed, arranged, and recorded by Penn students, alumni, and staff to accompany a display of printed sheet music in honor of Penn's Year of Sound.

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.

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Join us for a talk by Nick Malgieri, former Executive Pastry Chef at Windows on the World and the author of BREAD and ten other cookbooks, including the James Beard winner How to Bake. The preparation of bread and the cultivation of wheat necessary for its production are pivotal events that contributed to early humans' abandoning a nomadic existence and settling in towns. The history of bread stems from the simultaneous development of wheat cultivation, of both natural and beer-derived yeast, and of the tools and ovens necessary for baking. Today's crusty baguettes may seem to have little in common with ancient unleavened flatbreads, but both are deeply rooted in humanity's instinctive need for bread.

The 6th Annual Schoenberg Symposium will encourage participants to "think outside the codex" and turn the tables on traditional approaches to manuscript study. The conversation will begin with a focus primarily on instances of and responses to failure in the history of manuscript production and scholarship. By considering failures in manuscript design, production, reception, scholarship, and the digital humanities, we hope to provoke new questions and engender non-traditional approaches to the study of pre-modern manuscripts. In addition to a panel of speakers, the symposium will include four workshops offering hands-on exploration of problems and issues related to the study of manuscripts in the digital age.

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).

The annual Hop will begin at the Arthur Ross Gallery and continue on to the Architectural Archives. The final stop will be the Kislak Center exhibition Recent Acquisitions. A curator will be at each exhibition site to talk with attendees. Refresh yourself at the end of the tour with hors d'oeuvres and dessert.

Drop by for a visit and self-guided tour of the Penn Libraries' new state-of-the-art Kislak Center. See the new Reading Room and Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, and experience the extraordinary views of Campus Green, Franklin Field, and the Center City skyline. Enjoy the exhibit on Recent Acquisitions of the Penn Libraries on display in the Goldstein Family Gallery (during gallery hours).