Notable Collections
List
August Friedrich Pott Collection
The core of the Penn Libraries’ outstanding linguistics collection is the library of August Friedrich Pott (1802-1887), professor of general and comparative linguistics at the University of Halle and first librarian of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft.
Dechert Collection
The Robert Dechert Collection includes over 1600 printed books focusing on American travel, exploration, and Native American relations with settlers. Materials date from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. French Americana and the writings of Las Casas are particular strengths of the collection. A Dechert fund supports ongoing acquisitions.
Elzevier Collection
From 1583 to 1712, the Dutch firm of Elzevier (sometimes written Elsevier or Elzevir), with additional offices in France and Scandinavia, published a wide variety of books, and notably small-format books, for circulation throughout Europe. Penn's collection of Elzevier imprints, a donation of E. B. Krumbhaar to which subsequent purchases have been added, comprises over 1600 volumes produced by the Elzevier firm, along with related publications.
Gondi-Medici Business Records (Medici-Gondi Archive)
The Gondi-Medici Business Records comprise nearly two hundred separate bound manuscripts and other collections of documents—primarily account books, letter collections, and ledgers. These contain a vast array of information about the activities of multiple branches of the Gondi, Medici and related families in Italy in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Holy Land Collections
Penn's libraries are home to a wide range of special and general collections related to the Holy Land.
Incunable Collection
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.