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Louisa Shepard
News Officer
lshepard@upenn.edu
The Libraries’ goals for the spring semester remains the same as before the pandemic—to get materials into the hands of library users, either literally or virtually.
After retiring in 2019, the long-serving Penn figure continues his work in community outreach in West Philadelphia.
Known as the Deep Backfile project, a team of Penn Libraries staff has been analyzing an accumulated history of periodicals in the collection to determine which are no longer restricted by copyright, making them available for free and unrestricted use.
After an 18-month process that entailed gathering and synthesizing information from the Penn community and beyond, the Penn Libraries has released a strategic plan to guide its work through 2025.
Earlier this year, Penn Medicine epidemiologist Doug Wiebe glimpsed two small all-white birds outside Van Pelt Library that turned out to be albino house sparrows. Their coloration is likely the result of a genetic condition in which a bird’s feathers lack pigment.
This summer, professor of South Asia studies Ramya Sreenivasan worked with four undergraduates to get behind the façade of the Mughal military conquest state, using GIS and deep mapping to ascertain how the empire was formed and maintained.
Eva Del Soldato of the School of Arts & Sciences teaches Italian culture and language through the history of food.
Pickup@Penn allows members of the Penn community to request books and pick them up at Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center.
Penn Libraries has completed digitization of more than 2,500 items from its Marian Anderson collection, now available for public view on a new website.
An interdisciplinary team from Penn joined efforts with physicians in New York to fast-track virtual reality coronavirus training materials.
Louisa Shepard
News Officer
lshepard@upenn.edu
Andrea Nuñez and April James of the Libraries spoke about the newly digitized Marian Anderson collection housed in Penn’s Libraries. “I hope students gain a newfound respect for the challenging realities of Marian Anderson’s career,” said James. “Like countless other Black artists and writers of her time, she negotiated segregation at home and freedom abroad. Music allowed her to transcend these barriers and help her audiences see the possibility of a more inclusive future.”
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Arthur Kiron of the Libraries spoke about the popularity of the Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book for Passover. “It has such a powerful hold on the imagination because it tells a story of freedom through slavery,” he said. The Libraries’ Judaica collection is host to a collection of 1,800 volumes of the books.
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Lynne Farrington of the Libraries spoke about the acquisition of the Ashley Brian papers, which trace the author and illustrator’s 60-year publishing history. “He sees art as his salvation, as a way to deal with what’s happening in this country,” said Farrington.
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Lynne Farrington of the Kislak Center spoke about the significance of Walt Whitman to Philadelphia and the Libraries’ exhibition celebrating the poet’s life and accomplishments. “The relationship between Whitman and this region is close and fascinating,” she said. “It’s worthy of further exploration.”
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The Libraries have entered a partnership with the Athenaeum, Philadelphia’s last remaining subscription library. “Our new library partnership with the Athenaeum of Philadelphia makes easily accessible the Athenaeum’s unmatched collection of historic architectural publications and other documentation for the study of this rich legacy,” said David Brownlee, a School of Arts and Sciences professor and an Athenaeum board member. Jon Shaw and Constantia Constantinou were also quoted.
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The Schoenberg Institute was highlighted for its series of weekly videos in which the Libraries’ Dot Porter discusses parallels between fictional texts in the Star Wars universe and medieval manuscripts.
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