The Gershwind & Bennett Family Associate Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communications was established in 2021 with a generous gift from Penn Libraries Board of Advisors Chair Erik Gershwind, W’93, and Stacey Gershwind Bennett, C’95. The gift signals the importance of the Penn Libraries’ collections and scholarly communications, both of which are instrumental to advancing the University of Pennsylvania’s teaching and research. The Penn Libraries benefits tremendously from this gift, which will ensure support for the development of deep and distinctive collections as well as contributions to thought leadership in scholarly communications.
Collections represent the Penn Libraries’ vast information resources, carefully curated across many forms and continuously updated to reflect the ever-changing needs of the Penn community. The Libraires’ scholarly communications ensure Penn remains a leader in the creation, evaluation, distribution, and preservation of cutting-edge research and study.
Brigitte Weinsteiger, the inaugural Gershwind & Bennett Family Associate Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communications, directs the strategy, advancement and growth of the Penn Libraries’ preeminent collections while promoting academic engagement both on campus and with the Greater Philadelphia community.
Brigitte oversees the Libraries’ $27 million budget for collections, its 8.5 million print and electronic volumes, and a rich array of digital resources. She leads the Collections and Scholarly Communications division of the Penn Libraries, ensuring that the selection, acquisition, management, and preservation of the Libraries’ collections meet the diverse needs of the Penn community; and for overseeing outreach to faculty and students at Penn, in Philadelphia, and beyond. Departments under her purview include Collection Strategy; Preservation; Acquisitions, Access, and Licensing; Scholarly Communications; Library Counsel; Academic Engagement; Research Services; and Community Outreach. She is also responsible for administering the libraries serving professional schools and specific subject areas. These include the Biomedical Library, Chemistry Library, Dental Library, Fine Arts Library, Lippincott Library, Math/Physics/Astronomy Library, Museum Library, Music Library, and Veterinary Library.
Externally, Brigitte also represents Penn on various committees and councils, including the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. (PALCI), NorthEast Research Libraries consortium (NERL), the HathiTrust, and the Center for Research Libraries. She has also been appointed to a number of advisory councils and boards representing the publishing industry, including Project MUSE, JSTOR, EBSCO Books, and Emerald.
Before coming to the Penn Libraries in 2008, Brigitte worked at Penn's Biddle Law Library and at Penn State University in the Center for Medieval Studies and in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library. She holds an MA in Liberal Arts, focusing in medieval studies, from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MS in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. She also holds two BAs from Penn State, where she concentrated in medieval studies and the history of art with a minor in German. Brigitte is proficient in German, Middle High German, and the Lower Palatinate and Pennsylvania German dialects.