No Library staff is more finely attuned to the needs of their clients than that of the Lippincott Library, which serves the Wharton School. "What do our faculty and students want, and how can we deliver it efficiently and cost-effectively?" These are the practical questions that Mike Halperin, Director of the Lippincott Library, asks himself and his staff regularly. In providing answers to them, Halperin and his staff have developed a reputation for imagination and innovation. In the mid-80s they pioneered the introduction of document delivery, table-of-contents services, and document copying for Wharton faculty. These services were an immediate hit, and remain so to this day.

Under Halperin's leadership, the Lippincott Library has been consistently opportunistic in its use of technology to make research and learning easier and more convenient for the Wharton community. The sorts of innovations they pioneer will typically be picked up later by other business libraries as well as by other units in the Penn Library system. Electronic table-of-contents services, customizable e-journal features, and other improvements are routine examples of the staff's ability to stay with the crest of the wave. Lippincott has also teamed up with Digital Projects Librarian, Delphine Khanna, to create a sophisticated "answer database" that is now shared by thirty other institutions, among them Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Michigan. (See Providing Reference Service in Our Sleep [PDF].)

As befits the school it serves, the Lippincott Library is nothing if not entrepreneurial.