What We Collect
The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts is home to a growing collection of archival and rare materials spanning the globe and millennia. Our collections have a wide scope ranging from 12th century manuscript fragments from the Cairo Genizah to the records of local institutions like the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Our collections contain hundreds of thousands of individual objects, large and small, as well as born-digital collections. While subject emphases have evolved over more than two centuries of collecting at Penn, our collections generally fall into eight interlocking areas of focus. Each area buttresses existing collection strengths and aligns with our commitment to preserving and making accessible voices from around the world.
Have additional questions about our collecting areas? Email us at kislakcenter@upenn.edu.
Collections Areas
The American Experience
Building on a historical strength in American history and literature, the Kislak Center has collected materials that reflect the national tradition of political engagement, community-making, and the struggle for justice, equality, and representation. American history is driven by its dynamic political landscape. These materials illuminate topics like colonial rule, revolution, abolition, suffrage, and Civil Rights, among many others.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Caroline Schimmel Collection of Women in the American Wilderness
- Freedoms Foundation Collection of Political Pamphlets
- The Joanna Banks Collection of African American Literature
- The Benjamin Franklin Papers and Curtis Collection of Franklin Imprints
- The Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection
Judaica
The Judaica special collections of the Kislak Center, including the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, are global in scope, span four millennia, and are among the largest and most important worldwide. Format strengths include corpora of ancient Near Eastern tablets, classical papyri, medieval fragments of manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, medieval and early modern codex manuscripts, and 19th and 20th century archival collections and audio-visual holdings. Penn’s early modern Judaica print collections are rich in Biblical studies, Rabbinica, Christian Hebraica, historical philology, Jewish history, and Jewish thought.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Dropsie College Library
- The Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica
- Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Sound Archive
- The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection of Medieval Manuscripts
- The Henry Charles Lea Library
Manuscript Cultures
A manuscript culture is a context in which the transmission of texts occurs primarily through handwritten documents, often in the form of codices, and is usually synonymous with pre-modern scribal practice. In addition to our important physical holdings, the Kislak Center and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) are home to collections of manuscript-related data accessed via tools such as OPENN, BASIRA, and the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection of Medieval Manuscripts
- South Asian Manuscript Collection
- Henry Charles Lea Collection
- Ms. Codex Materials
- Ms. Roll. Materials
Material Texts
“Material Text” refers to how we encounter and learn about textual objects and how that encounter shapes the meaning of the text. This collection area includes everything from the study of writing, printing, publishing, reading, and authorship to the investigation of the physical processes of producing texts and the history of the book. Collection items span physical forms and include printing plates, textile samplers, and traditional codices.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Zinman Collection of Canvassing Books
- Arthur Tress Collection of Japanese Illustrated Books
- Vilain-Wieck Collection of Private Presses
- Fez Lithographic Books Collection
- Atha Tehon Collection
Philadelphia Arts and Community
Philadelphia is a vibrant center for visual art, music, and performance. We seek to preserve the city’s history and share its traditions, cultural heritage, and community experiences with the world.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Marian Anderson Papers
- Philadelphia Orchestra Association Records
- Arthur Huff Fauset Papers
- Institute for Contemporary Art Records
- Painted Bride papers
Science, Health, and Society
The University of Pennsylvania has long served as a training ground for medicine and science. We seek to support research into the production of scientific knowledge and have collected materials related to health policy, medical reform, and health activism. These collections include medieval and renaissance works of science and medicine, manuscript recipe books, midwifery books, industrial manuals, Penn medical student notebooks, and dissertations.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Edgar Fahs Smith Collection in the History of Chemistry
- Evans Dental Collection
- John W. Mauchly Papers
- Cookery and Recipe Collections
- Walter J. Lear US Health Activism Collection and its related materials (Medical Committee for Human Rights; the Maternity Care Coalition; the Women’s Health Concerns Committee; Elizabeth Fee Papers; Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Welfare and Charitable Organization Collections)
Shakespeare and the Stage
For more than a century, the Penn Libraries has collected the history of theater and drama, including early modern plays, music, theatrical scrapbooks, and thousands of playbills, portraits, and images. The collection also includes materials related to Shakespeare in translation, English drama in global contexts, ephemera related to film interpretations of early modern plays, global Shakespeare-related materials, American performance history, and music in dramatic contexts.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Furness Memorial Shakespeare Library
- Spanish Golden Age Drama Collection
- Clothier and Speiser Dramatic Collections
- The Edwin Forrest Library and Collection
Visual Culture
Recurring styles, motifs, and techniques of visual materials help define their political significance. These visual traditions also reflect the framework through which artists and authors create their works. Our collections include materials that meditate distinct visual languages, informing the creation of mass media and the technical processes of reproduction. Formats include mechanically produced images like prints and photographs, and handmade images, drawings, paintings.
Example Collections and Material Highlights:
- Harvey Finkle Archive
- Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair
- Ashley Bryan Archive
- Steven Rothman Collection of Comics, Cartoons, and Graphic Novels
- Mark B. Adams Science Fiction Collection
The Kislak Center is the principal site for rare books and manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. We work in collaboration with the University Archives and Record Center, the Fisher Fine Arts Library, the Annenberg School for Communication Library, the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, the Architectural Archives, the Penn Museum Library Rare Book Collection, and the Leon Levy Dental Medicine Library. Review our catalog and list of notable collections for a full account of our collections
To read more about current collecting goals across the Penn Libraries, see Strategies for Special and Global Collections.