Notable Collections

The Arthur Tress Collection of Japanese Illustrated Books includes over 1,400 titles dating from the late 17th century through the 1930s.

This collection contains thousands of comics and graphic novels in multiple languages, with a strength in standalone graphic novels, LGBTQ comics, and published editions of webcomics.

The East Asia Comics Collection embodies the Libraries’ strategic priorities to collect and preserve global voices, and to make accessible materials related to borders and belonging. 

Penn has the most extensive single collection in the world of adventure stories from the late Meiji and Taishō periods.

The Naval Collection focuses on the Meiji through early Shōwa periods, and is especially strong in materials related to the training fleet (renshū kantai 練習艦隊).

The Penn Libraries collects a variety of Japanese rare materials.

Because of longstanding collection strengths in area studies as well as because of disciplinary trends recognizing philosophers outside of the traditional western canon, the Penn Libraries have a significant amount of material relating to philosophy and philosophers in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.