Van Pelt Library
Otto E. Albrecht Music Library
Liza Vick, head
The Music Library supports the teaching and research needs of the Department of Music through the acquisition of books, scores, sound recordings, video recordings, and electronic resources covering all areas of study. Students and faculty are also able to request materials through BorrowDirect (a consortium of Ivy League universities) and EZBorrow (a consortium of Pennsylvania institutions of higher education), with delivery in under one week.
The Music Library currently holds over 70,000 volumes of books, music, periodicals, and microforms. 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. Recent collection development efforts have focused on the acquisition of contemporary music scores, facsimilies of original printed and manuscript sources, and materials related to ethnomusicology, popular music, and jazz.
Eugene Ormandy Music and Media Center
Catherine Rutan, Library Specialist
The Eugene Ormandy Music and Media Center is named for the long-term conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, whose professional papers, conducting scores, and recordings are held by the Penn Libraries. The Center houses more than 50,000 sound recordings of Western music, popular music, jazz, and traditional musics of the world. The video collection includes DVD recordings of opera and ballet as well as a diverse collection of videorecordings related to the study of world music. All compact discs and video recordings are listed in Franklin, the Penn Library's online catalog.
The Glossberg Video Viewing Rooms offer Blu-ray, DVD, and VHS players attached to a widescreen television. All of the audio and video equipment is used with headphones, and up to three individuals may listen/view together.
The Glossberg Recording Room is a resource for faculty, students, and staff to record the spoken word for podcasts, video voice-overs, and interviews. It is equipped with two professional microphones, a mixer, and a Mac Pro with recording software.
The Class of 1958 Audio Lab includes six carrels that contain audio components to play LPs, cassette tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, and compact discs. The audio components are available for use by all patrons of the library. Four iMac Pros are available for use by members of the Penn community. Headphones may be borrowed at the Ormandy service desk.
Marian Anderson Study Center
The Marian Anderson Music Study Center, which opened in 1998, houses the library's reference collection, current periodical issues, and microfilm collection. The Center provides a quiet study space for readers and includes microform readers, computers, and wireless connectivity.
Bodek Conference Room
Graduate seminars are held in the Bodek Conference Room, located in the Marian Anderson Music Study Center. The conference table seats twelve, and the room includes a piano and flat-panel television connected to a computer and a DVD player. The room is also home to the library's Beethoven Cabinet.
Museum Library
Deborah Stewart, head
The University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology began in 1887 as a small collection of curios packed into cabinets in the then University of Pennsylvania Library and has since grown to one of the premiere anthropology and archeology museums in the world.
The scope of the library collection has always emphasized anthropology, including prehistoric, Classical, and Near Eastern archaeology, cultural and social anthropology, biological and physical anthropology, and anthropological linguistics, as well as related fields such as museology. Special attention has always been given to the curricular and research requirements of the faculty in the Department of Anthropology and curatorial staff of the University Museum. The Museum Library presently possesses over 115,000 volumes with an annual circulation of about 14,000 items, and maintains 549 active journal subscriptions as well as 290 exchange partners around the globe. There are public desktop and laptop computers with wireless access for patron use as well as scanning, printing and photocopying facilities. The library has the capacity to seat 154 patrons, in addition to two study rooms, a photographic area, microform reading room, a growing audio/visual collection with facilities for viewing DVD and VHS recordings.
Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts
David McKnight, Director, Rare Book & Manuscript Library; William Noel, Director, Kislak Center
The The Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses the Library's rare music along with collections of particular interest to music researchers, including the papers of several musicians (Marian Anderson, Alma Mahler Werfel, and Rudolf Serkin), the archives of the American Musicological Society, the Eugene Ormandy Collection, the Leopold Stokowski Collection, and the archives of the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society.
Fisher Fine Arts Library
Hannah Bennett, head
The Fisher Fine Arts Library supports study, teaching and research in contemporary and historical aspects of art, architecture, city and regional planning, historic preservation, landscape architecture, studio art, and urban design. Text and image collections, in analog and digital form, have a global reach and concentrate on the arts of the western experience, Islam, South Asia and East Asia, from prehistory to the present. Our digital and print resources are designed to meet the needs of students and faculty of the departments, schools and programs of the University of Pennsylvania.