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Exploring ‘One Thousand and One Nights’
Students and faculty look at rare books in the Lea Library.

Dr. Paul Cobb, center, looks on as students and library staff examine rare versions of “One Thousand and One Nights” in the Lea Library.

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Exploring ‘One Thousand and One Nights’

A seminar from Middle Eastern medievalist Paul Cobb gets students talking and thinking about the “disorienting” storytelling in “One Thousand and One Nights.”

3 min. read

Exploring the Declaration through ink and type
A hand preparing letterpress off a small paper with text.

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Exploring the Declaration through ink and type

A typesetting workshop at Penn’s Common Press invited participants to reinterpret lines from the Declaration of Independence as part of the Typography of Independence project and Penn’s America 250 programming.

3 min. read

An inside look at the history of television
Handwritten notes and paper relics from TV shows in the past.

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An inside look at the history of television

Materials in the Annenberg School for Communication Library Archives include thousands of TV scripts, the first issue of TV Guide, and interviews about the early days of HBO—which help to chronicle TV’s 100-year story.
Exploring Philadelphia’s petrochemical past
An illustration of the Philadelphia Gas works complex in 1890

Philadelphia Gas Works in an 1890 illustration. It sat on the east side of the Schuylkill River, between Market and Filbert streets.

(Image: David J. Kennedy. Courtesy of Historical Society of Philadelphia, via petrodelphia.org.)

Exploring Philadelphia’s petrochemical past

Penn historian Jared Farmer recently launched a website about Philadelphia’s fossil fuel economy to help students and residents learn about the local past in larger context.

2 min. read

Connecting with America’s 250th anniversary
The Declaration of Independence at the National Archives

The Declaration of Independence on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

(Image: Mark Schiefelbein via AP Images)

Connecting with America’s 250th anniversary

Ahead of the main event on July 4, 2026, marking the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Penn students, faculty, and staff will have multiple early opportunities to engage with America’s 250th anniversary.

3 min. read

Edward Humes accepts Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability

Edward Humes accepts Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability

Edward Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, visited Penn last month to accept the Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability for his book “Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal Our World.”

Bequest to the Penn Libraries names humanities librarian, supports public school library initiatives and history acquisitions

Bequest to the Penn Libraries names humanities librarian, supports public school library initiatives and history acquisitions

The Penn Library’s $3 million gift from the late Steven A. Lipman will endow a staff position, the Steven A. Lipman Librarian and Coordinating Bibliographer for the Humanities; the Steven A. Lipman Fund for Truth and Democracy, and the Steven A. Lipman Fund for Community Engagement, which will support the Penn Libraries’ work in Philadelphia public schools.

$21M legacy gift supports Penn Arts & Sciences’ Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Penn Libraries, and Morris Arboretum & Gardens
rare book room at the Katz Center.

Ione Apfelbaum Strauss & Hilary Strauss Rare Book Room at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

(Image: Kathryn Maxwell)

$21M legacy gift supports Penn Arts & Sciences’ Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, the Penn Libraries, and Morris Arboretum & Gardens

The donor, alumna Louise Strauss, was a member of the Katz Center’s board of advisors and was dedicated to volunteer work and philanthropy.

3 min. read