The overall quality of the Library's history collection is high, capable of supporting graduate-level research across a wide range of historical topics. The bulk of the monographic collection consists of English language material pertaining to the United States and Western Europe and published by university or scholarly press publishers. The history collection also consists of large numbers of books in German, French, Spanish, and Italian. Strong collections of African, Asian, and Slavic language material are included in Area Studies collections. The default format for new acquisitions in history is ebook, although many books are purchased in print, and the great majority of the historical collection is in print. Beyond this core, the Library purchases material widely but not comprehensively. The Borrow Direct and EZ-Borrow services are especially important for supplementing the Libraries' collections of foreign language material, local interest publications, specialty publishers, popular periodicals, regions not collected heavily by the libraries (Canada and Oceania, for example), and primary sources.
A strong collection of online scholarly journals in English and Romance Languages is supplemented by print journals at Penn and by journals that are available through interlibrary loan. There is a significant collection of documentaries and fictional videos on DVD and streaming formats, and strong image collections, as well as extensive coverage of available electronic primary source databases, which provide access to historical collections of books, magazines, archives, manuscripts, personal narratives, and related material.
