Notable Collections

Penn Dental Medicine is one of the oldest dental schools in the nation. Dr. Thomas W. Evans, a Philadelphia native, who became the dentist to the courts of Europe during France’s Second Empire and confidant of Napoleon III, left his estate in 1897 to create and maintain a dental school that would be “second to none.” Dr. Evans’ collection did not though fund the formation of a dental library that was left to future generations.

The Ross Bible Collection includes three medieval manuscripts and over one hundred printed editions of the Bible and related Biblical texts, ranging in date from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries. The Collection was a gift to the library from T. Edward Ross, in memory of Lucien Bonaparte Carpenter, in 1946.