5/10/24: Due to police activity on the College Green, access to Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center is currently restricted. Current students, faculty and staff with a valid Penn card are permitted to enter and exit through the Rosengarten Undergraduate Study Center on the ground floor. 

Reading period April 30 to May 14: Access to Van Pelt and Fisher Fine Arts Library is currently limited. Find more information.

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Tobias Wagner Library Fund & The Tobias Wagner Library of History and Literature

The Tobias Wagner Fund was created with the stroke of a pen 130 years ago.

Today, the income from the fund is tracked by a computerized spreadsheet program. The books bought with it are entered on a globally accessible database. The circulation librarian who checks out the books uses a bar-code scanner.

None of this was anticipated by Miss Elizabeth Rhoads, who founded the fund in 1874. But she knew her gift would always benefit the Penn Library...and it continues to do so.