Established in 2001, the Muriel Pfaelzer Bodek Lecture Series is funded through an endowed fund created by Gordon Bodek in honor of his wife Muriel. The Bodek Lecture Series includes talks, lectures and various other public programs of great merit which are hosted by the Penn Libraries and have a special focus on current issues and topics.

The most recent event supported in part by this fund was the symposium Creating Children's Books: Collaboration and Change, which took place in conjunction with two exhibitions - As the Ink Flows: Works from the Pen of William Steig and The School of Atha: Collaboration and Change honored the contributions of William Steig and Atha Tehon as two important figures to the world of children's literature during late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. It explored the creation of children's books from both the writer/illustrator and designer/publisher perspectives, looking at the role of collaboration in the process and considering the future of children's books from various perspectives, including that of diversity.