The Kaplan Collection documents commercial, social, religious, political, and cultural ties that connected Jews and the general public from the colonial era through the nineteenth century.
This collection of approximately 18,000 items includes books and periodicals on German literature, linguistics, philology, folklore, and related disciplines. Materials date from the 15th through the 19th centuries. The Bechstein Library was acquired by the University of Pennsylvania in 1896.
This collection of over 170 titles documents the earliest printing in Morocco. The bulk of the collection dates from 1865 to 1936, covering most of the span of Moroccan lithographic printing from its beginning in the city of Fez to its end during the French Protectorate.
Penn's libraries are home to a wide range of special and general collections related to the Holy Land.
The Kislak Center holds over 560 exemplars of books printed in Europe from movable type before 1501. Sixty-six of these titles are the only recorded copies in North America. These volumes contain texts in religion, philosophy, and ancient and modern literature. This collection group includes includes incunables from the Henry Charles Lea Library and the Yarnall Library of Theology.
Penn Libraries has a substantive Indo-Caribbean collection that strives to reveal histories, communities, and cultural expressions that have remained underrepresented in most research libraries.
The Kislak Center holds substantial collections of family papers from Italy, containing a wide range of documents dating from the Middle Ages and Renaissance into modern times. This webpage provides an overview of these diverse collections.
The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection includes nearly three hundred manuscripts and documents ranging in date from ca. 1900BC to the 20th century, with particular focus on the eras of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.