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Diversity in the Stacks: Central American Political and Social History

Posted on by Brie Gettleson
Two books are stacked on a table. The top book says "Los indígenas también queremos ser guatemaltecos..." and shares author name of Alberto Esquit Choy.

Recognizing the importance of Central American Studies, the Penn Libraries recently acquired a substantial collection of ephemera, books, and audiovisual materials from the region. 

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Penn Libraries Establishes Lecture Series on Global Subjects

The pavilion in the Kislak Center has a full audience, with some people clapping.

The newly endowed Park-Choi Lecture Series supports the Penn Libraries’ ongoing commitment to meaningful engagement with individuals, institutions, and communities through scholarship support and programming.

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University of Pennsylvania Libraries Announces Brian Vivier as Inaugural Director of the Center for Global Collections

Posted on
Brian Vivier

In his new role, he will provide strategic vision, leadership, and oversight for the Center in building world-class distinctive global collections and engaging programming. 

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Making Science Labs Safer at the University of Pennsylvania

Posted on by Rebecca Ortenberg
A computer screen showing a spreadsheet on the left and a page from the PubChem website on the right. Most of the text is unreadable, but on the PubChem website you can see warning symbols in red boxes.

It’s the job of Penn's Office of Environmental Health and Radiation Safety (EHRS) to develop, implement, and manage the systems that keep the university's many science labs as safe as possible. But in the last few years, the team has begun turning to chemistry librarian Judith Currano as a vital partner in these processes. 

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Summer Featured Books and DVDs: For the Love of Food

Posted on by Amanda Alexander
DVDs lined up in a row with "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" in the front

Some of us eat to live, and some of us live to eat. For some of us, making and eating food can also be a rich source for cultural analysis and storytelling. This month’s featured materials show some of the many ideas and values food can represent. 

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New eBook Subscription: Harvard Business Publishing Collection

Posted on by Cynthia Cronin-Kardon
Covers of three books from the eBooks package: Collision Course, Compassionate Leadership, and Beyond Collaboration Overload.

Just in time for summer reading season, the Penn Libraries has subscribed to the Harvard Business Review ebooks package from EBSCO.

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Books on the Move: Changes in the Van Pelt Stacks

Posted on
A masked individual moves books from a shelf to a rolling cart

Through Summer 2023, the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center stacks are undergoing a multi-phase refresh and reorganization.

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Diversity in the stacks

Diversity in the Stacks: Highlights from the Penn Sexuality Collection

Posted on by David Azzolina
The cover of the first issue of the magazine Blue on the front cover, showing a man with dark hair looking at the camera in a sultry manner

The Penn Sexuality Collection will add materials to the Penn Libraries that fall outside the usual purview of academic libraries, helping to make the Libraries a destination for sexuality researchers. 

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Rebuilding Rare Books in a Virtual Space: A Conversation with Curator Dot Porter

Posted on by Rebecca Ortenberg
Two people stand at the edge of the frame reaching out towards a large book sitting in a box in the middle of the table

We recently sat down with curator Dot Porter to talk about how she tries to bring very old books to life in the digital world.

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June Featured Books and DVDs: Pride Month

Posted on by Amanda Alexander
DVDs in top row are Moonlight, The Celluloid Closet, Ammonite, and Pariah. Bottom row is Rock Hudson's home movies, The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs, A Fantastic Woman, and Welcome to Chechnya.

Penn’s LGBT Center will be kicking off their Pride activities with a Queer Dance Class on Friday, June 3 , and will be hosting special events throughout the month. In the meantime, LGBT Center staff provided the Penn Libraries with the following recommendations, each of which offers an an inspiring and enriching reading or watching experience

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August 2019

Marian Anderson: The Most Modest Trailblazer

Source: NPR: Music
Published:

In praise of pretty books

Source: The Washington Post
Published:

August 2019

Slavery, Abolition and Social Change, 1490-2007

Posted on August 2019 by Nick Okrent
Berea College, founded in 1855 as the first interracial and coeducational college in the South.

This database assembles many substantial clusters of material offering in-depth case studies in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba along with important material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.  The range of material is vast and serves as a complement to the U.S.- and English-focused Slavery and Anti-Slavery database.  It can also be searched with comple

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Frontier life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters

Posted on August 2019 by Nick Okrent
Log cabin farmhouse

This digital collection of primary source documents helps us to understand existence on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920. Discover the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.

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London Lowlife: Street culture, social reform and the Victorian underworld

Posted on August 2019
Engraving title is last penny. It shows a down and out man in a bar.

Full-text searchable database containing color images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London; designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond. Will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including literature, cultural studies, urban studies, and social history.

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Medical Services and Warfare, 1850-1927

Posted on August 2019 by Nick Okrent
World War I ambulance in bombed village

This database tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives.

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Q&A with Professor Jessa Lingel

Jessa Lingel

Jessa Lingel is an assistant professor at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication. Lingel’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of digital culture with social change: broadly speaking, she studies how communities — especially marginalized communities — employ technology to reinforce their values, objectives, and identities.

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