The main entrance to the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center is now open. Van Pelt Library and the Fisher Fine Arts Library are currently open to Penn Card holders, Penn affiliates, and certain visitors. See our Service Alerts for details.

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Alumni and Friends Book Fund

The University of Pennsylvania Library is one of the nation's great academic research centers. The continued excellence of the Library is essential to the University's research mission; its undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs; its ability to attract and retain outstanding faculty and students; and its worldwide scholarly community.

The Alumni and Friends Book Fund provides an endowment for the continuing acquisition of resources--books, manuscripts, journals, recordings, photographs, films, and electronic resources.

Benjamin Franklin had a vision of a center for "tools for improvement": "That a House be provided for the Academy...that the House be furnished with a Library...with Maps of all Countries, Globes, some Mathematical Instruments, and Apparatus for Experiments in Natural Philosophy, and for Mechanics; Prints of all Kinds, Prospects, Buildings, Machines, &c."

The generosity of generations of Penn Library Alumni and Friends keeps Franklin's vision alive. Consider continuing the tradition by making a gift now in honor or memory of a special person by visiting the Support Us button on our website.