On January 22, Judaica Special Collections Cataloging Librarian Louis Meiselman will bring out CAJS Rar Ms 778, the memorbuch for the community of Austerlitz (Czech Republic), dating from early 17th century.
This discussion will present the work of two 2025-2026 Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) Graduate Student Fellows and a 2025 Penn Libraries Data Science and Society Research Assistant exploring Handwritten Text Recognition technologies for use on a variety of historic and archival documents for future in-depth research.
Dr. Emily Sneff, a leading expert on the history of the Declaration of Independence, will share some of the stories behind the first printings of the founding document of the United States.
January 27, 2026
5:30pm -
7:00pm
Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, sixth floor
On February 5, curator Dot Porter will bring out a variety of fragments and leaves from books of hours, from the 15th and 16th centuries and written in France, the Netherlands, and England.
Ahmed Abdullah, jazz trumpeter, adjunct professor at The New School, and former member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, leads a workshop on Sun Ra and the history of jazz.
February 5, 2026
4:00pm -
5:30pm
Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, sixth floor
Ahmed Abdullah, jazz trumpeter, adjunct professor at The New School, and former member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, presents a talk on his memoir A Strange Celestial Road.
February 5, 2026
6:00pm -
7:00pm
Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, sixth floor
