Penn Libraries & Commons

The Albrecht Music Library houses books, music scores, periodicals, microforms, and audio and video recordings. At the core of the collection are scores in both scholarly and performing editions, literature on music history and theory, and microforms of primary sources. The Library's manuscript holdings include the papers of Marian Anderson, Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stowkowski, and the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society archives.

The Annenberg School for Communication Library contains both a reference and current awareness collection with particular strength in the areas of print media, film and video, telecommunications and broadcasting, mass media effects, cultural studies, political and health communication, and communication in the developing world.

The library’s collections serve the Law School’s faculty and students, the University community, and the regional legal community. Two-thirds of the one million volumes in our collection consist of American primary materials (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.) and secondary sources such as journals, scholarly monographs, loose-leaf services, and federal legislative histories.

The services and collections of the Biotech Commons support research, education, and patient care decisions for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, Biomedical Graduate Studies, and the Department of Biology. In addition to online databases, the Library provides fulltext networked e-journals and e-books, as well as classes in accessing biomedical information.

The Chemistry Library primarily supports four areas of major faculty research: biological chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry. The collection maintains 160 current journal subscriptions and has full runs of most English-language core journals in chemistry.

The Education Commons is a state-of-the-art study and information space that supports teaching and collaborative learning. It comprises 6,400 square feet and 168 seats and includes a 24-seat seminar room and 7 group study rooms, all reservable online. The space is open to all current Penn students, faculty, and staff (a PennCard is required for access).

The collections of the Fisher Fine Arts Library cover architecture, city planning, historic preservation, history of art, landscape architecture, the studio arts, and urban design. They are increasingly global in scope. The Perkins Architectural Collection includes rare publications in history and theory of architecture. A collection of more than 380,000 digital images is available for faculty and student use.

The Kislak Center holds many unique printed books and extensive manuscript collections. The book collection is rich in primary resources supporting the study of philosophy, history, literature, and science, and includes items dating from the fifteenth century. The lives and times of several artists, writers, performers, and scholars are chronicled in the Library's modern manuscript collections; manuscript holdings also comprise approximately 800 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts as well as the largest collection of Indic manuscripts in North America. Major special collections include the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Library in the History of Chemistry, the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, and the Henry Charles Lea Library of the Inquisition and Church History.

The Dental School Library's collection covers all aspects of dental medicine and the related basic sciences. Areas of emphasis include oral biology, oral implantation, periodontics, endodontics, orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, and oral and maxillofacial surgery. The Library also provides access to a wide range of biomedical databases, and an ever-expanding collection of fulltext electronic journals.

The Penn Libraries Research Annex (LIBRA) houses Penn's off-campus collections. The building easily accommodates staff, new materials processing, shipping of books to campus by delivery van, digital scanning workstations and a reading room, while additional space is available for future expansion. First opened in 2011 with 1.6 million volumes, LIBRA provides space for Penn's growing library collections while its location ensures rapid delivery of materials in both physical and electronic form.

The Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (LKCAJS) supports advanced research and scholarship in Judaic Studies. Its collection strengths are Biblical and rabbinic literature, Jewish history and thought, and Judaica Americana.  The types of special collections holdings include cuneiform tablets, ancient papyri, Hebrew scrolls, Cairo Genizah fragments, codex manuscripts, incunabula, early printed works, archival collections, early photographs and maps of the Holy Land.

The Lippincott Library of the Wharton School is the University of Pennsylvania's business library, serving the research needs of Wharton and the Penn community. Located in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, our resources include access to data, journals, news, analyst reports, market research and more.

The Math/Physics/Astronomy Library supports teaching and research conducted by faculty and students in mathematics and the sciences. The Library's collections are particularly strong in high-energy physics, astrophysics, topology, algebraic geometry, and Riemannian geometry. Major electronic resources include indexes and abstracts to the literature, such as MathSciNet, INSPEC, and the Science Citation Index.

The Penn Museum Library, founded in 1898, is one of the outstanding anthropological libraries in the world. Its collections support research, study, and teaching in anthropology and archaeology, and include materials in related disciplines such as folklore, linguistics, museology, ethnography, and ethnographic art.

Penn's main social sciences and humanities research library, the Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library occupies the east half of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. The building provides rooms for teaching, seminars, and collaboration; carrels, computer workstations, and digital media labs; exhibition galleries; and a variety of group and individual study spaces, as well as the central Library administrative offices.  Van Pelt Library shares the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center with the Kislak Center, the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School, the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library, and the David B. Weigle Information Commons.

The Steven W. Atwood Library and Information Commons supports faculty and students engaged in the health and healing of small animals. Librarians offer individualized consultations and database training sessions for researchers here and at the New Bolton Center.

The Jean Austin du Pont Library supports members of the New Bolton Campus as well as the larger PennVet community. The library is open to all Penn Vet staff and students during the work day and after hours via PennCard access. Visitors should schedule visits through library staff. When the librarian is not available on site, we encourage you to contact staff at the Steven W. Atwood Library & Information Commons.

The Weigle Information Commons supports collaborative learning and group activities using the latest technologies. The Commons hosts student assistance services from our Program Partners. The Commons includes a variety of collaboration spaces including group study rooms, data diner booths, alcove meeting areas, a 35-seat seminar room and the Vitale Digital Media Lab.