Member Libraries and Representatives
Kelsey Manahan-Phelan: km3476@drexel.edu
Founded in 1812, the library’s resources focus on natural history and the environment from the 16th century to the present; holdings include over 200,000 volumes, plus archives, photographs, art, and artifacts.
Beth Hessel: bhessel@philaathenaeum.org
Museum and Library. Founded in 1814, the Athenaeum houses a nationally significant collection on architecture and design history.
Amanda McKnight: amcknight@barnesfoundation.org
The Barnes Foundation is an educational institution chartered by Pennsylvania in 1922 that is well known for its world-renowned art collection. The Barnes Foundation archives contain historic and institutional records.
Janelle Rebel: jrebel@brynmawr.edu
Academic Library. British and American literary history; European travel accounts to Africa, Asia and Latin America; Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and books; women’s history, especially suffrage; women writers and artists; history of London; art study collections; archaeological and ethnographic materials; decorative arts.
Tracey Williams: tracey.t.williams@phila.gov
City records not in current use and possessing historical, administrative, legal, research, cultural or other important value. Home of the www.phillyhistory.org online archive of historic photographs.
Kate Quinn (Acting): kquinn@collegeofphysicians.org
Library collections focus on medical history: books, journals, prints/photographs, physician papers, and institutional archives. The Mütter Museum is known for its nineteenth-century collection of anatomical and pathological specimens.
Aliyah Shanti: aliyah.shanti@curtis.edu
The Curtis Institute of Music Special Collections and Archives holds over 340 linear feet of materials, including 66 donated manuscript collections, more than 400 audiovisual materials, and 8000 photographs.
Matthew Lyons: ml3342@drexel.edu
Drexel University Archives and Special Collections collects the records created by Drexel University administrative offices and academic departments from 1892 to the present.
Margaret Graham: mmg24@drexel.edu
The Legacy Center: Archives and Special Collections on Women in Medicine and Homeopathy is the repository for records documenting the history of the College and its predecessor institutions including Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University.
Janine Pollock: pollockj@freelibrary.org
Collections include illuminated manuscripts, Americana, common law, children’s literature and illustrations, and Pennsylvania German Fraktur. The Central Library houses special collections in other departments; consult website.
Bettina Hess: librarian@germansociety.org
The library houses approximately 60,000 volumes; three-quarters are in German. The library’s collections include the historic reading library of the German Society, with rare holdings in German and American history, literature and culture since the 18th century. Other special collections document German-American life in the United States since 1683, including books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and German-American newspapers and periodicals.
Sarah Horowitz: shorowitz@haverford.edu
Quaker books and manuscripts, 17th century to present, especially regarding Native Americans, civil rights and women’s rights, Quakers in Japan; other rare books and manuscripts dating back to the 13th century; photographs and historic maps.
Craig Bruns: cbruns@phillyseaport.org
The J. Welles Henderson Archives and Library at Independence Seaport Museum is a regional maritime research center, offering resources that document Philadelphia’s relationship with its rivers and the greater Delaware River Valley.
Caitlin Rizzo: crizzo@ias.edu
The Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center at the Institute for Advanced Study sustains and provides access to the history of the Institute’s historic community of scholars.
Heather Willever-Farr: willeverfarr@lasalle.edu
Strengths include Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, and Trauma Literatures; the Owen Wister Collection; the life and work of Bob Dylan; Illustrated Woodcut Bibles; Tea Ceremony and other local historical documents relating to La Salle’s heritage and grounds.
Nancy Goldenberg: NGoldenberg@laurelhillphl.com
Strengths include business records that document attitudes, customs, and practices relating to how people in the Philadelphia region bury and commemorate the dead from the elaborate Victorian monumentation and the use of Laurel Hill as an early Philadelphia park and museum, to the rise of the death profession and the business of the modern cemetery through the end of the 20th century and the establishment of a crematory at Laurel Hill West. Contemporary collections illustrate the rise of natural or green burial and the return of the cemetery as a multi-faceted space for education and recreation.
Lois Fischer Black: lob206@lehigh.edu
Lehigh University’s Special Collections holds a rare book collection of over 40,000 volumes, with first editions of English and American literature dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
Rachel D’Agostino: rdagostino@librarycompany.org
Independent research library specializing in American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries, housing an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, prints, photographs, and works of art.
Janet Evans: jevans@pennhort.org
America’s first horticultural society. Strong collection of American and European gardening classics, as well as books, catalogs and images documenting history of Delaware Valley horticulture.
Heidi Nance: heidina@pcom.edu
The O.J. Snyder Memorial Library actively seeks to acquire photographs, documents, publications, records, memorabilia and other items that reveal the continuing history of the College.
Kristen Regina: kristen.regina@philamuseum.org
The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Library and Archives, located in the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, constitute a comprehensive resource for art history research and study, with an emphasis on the collections of the Museum. They serve the Museum’s staff–curators, conservators, educators, and guides–as well as visiting scholars, college and university students, and the general public.
Jenn Garcon: jg5753@princeton.edu
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is one of the premier repositories of its kind. Its holdings span five millennia and five continents, and include around 300,000 rare or significant printed works; 30,000 linear feet of textual materials, ranging from cuneiform tablets to contemporary manuscripts; a wealth of prints, drawings, photographs, maps, coins, and other visual materials; the Cotsen Children’s Library; and the Princeton University Archives. The recently-gifted Scheide Library is also associated with the Department.
Nancy Loi: nloi@rosenbach.org
Collections are especially strong in manuscript and printed American history, British and Irish literature, and book illustration; also large special collections of James Joyce, Marianne Moore, and Herman Melville, and Bram Stoker.
Sara Borden: borden@rowan.edu
Rowan University Archives and Special Collections (RUASC) holds approximately 600 linear feet of manuscript collections and University Archives papers and 17,000 linear feet of books and journals. RUASC collects in the areas of southern New Jersey history, southern New Jersey Quaker history, 19th and 20th century children’s books, University Archives and faculty papers, and University publications.
Gabriela Zoller: gzoller@sciencehistory.org
The Science History Institute’s collections represents centuries of the material culture of the chemistry and related sciences, technologies, and industries.
Mike Lear: mlear@pa.gov
The State Library of Pennsylvania collects and preserves our written heritage through materials published for, by, and about Pennsylvania. Collection strengths are Pennsylvania Newspapers, Genealogy, Pamphlets, and General Assembly Collection.
Celia Caust-Ellenbogen: ccauste1@swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore College Special Collections includes four curatorial units: Friends Historical Library (focusing particularly on Quakers in the middle-Atlantic region of the United States and the history of American social reform), Peace Collection (documenting non-governmental efforts for nonviolent social change, disarmament, and conflict resolution), Rare Book Room (specializing in fine press and artist’s books), and the Swarthmore College Archives.
Brenda Galloway-Wright: bgallowa@temple.edu
The Special Collections Research Center includes the Urban Archives, Philadelphia Jewish Archives collections, rare books and manuscripts, science fiction and fantasy, the Contemporary Culture Collection printing/publishing/bookselling records, the Philadelphia Dance Collection, and the University Archives (Templana Collection).
Sarah Slate: sarah.slate@jefferson.edu
Special collections strengths include the history of textile management and production in the 19th and 20th century; the Philadelphia Centennial; local history of the Germantown and East Falls neighborhoods; and a Philadelphia post card collection. The library has also received the complete archives of Senator Arlen Specter’s 30 year career in the United State Senate.
Keeley Tulio : tuliok@unionleague.org
Specializing in the American Civil War and The Union League of Philadelphia.
Victoria Jesswein: vjesswein@uls.edu
Original Reformation-era publications; Lutheran liturgical publications from the 16th to 18th century; early printed Bibles and Books of Hours. The Seminary campuses also host the Lutheran Archives for their regions.
Curtis Small: csmalljr@udel.edu
Books, manuscripts, and other materials from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century with particular strengths in the arts; English, Irish, and American literature; history and Delawareana; horticulture; and history of science and technology.
Samantha Dodd: smdodd@upenn.edu
American, British, & Continental history, literature, & philosophy; medieval & Renaissance studies; Shakespeare; history of science & technology, esp. chemistry; cookery; book history & arts; local arts history; South Asia; Judaica.
Michael Foight: michael.foight@villanova.edu
Augustiana, European imprints to 1800, Hubbard/Roycrofter Press, Irish and Irish-American history, incunabula, fine bindings, North American imprints to 1820. Also hosts university archives and the Augustinian Historical Institute.
Lynn Dorwaldt: lynnd@wagnerfreeinstitute.org
Founded in 1855 as a free educational institution. The library collections focus on natural and physical sciences, engineering, education, and technology from the 17th through the early 20th century.
Jill Borin: jmborin@widener.edu
Documents the history of Widener University and its predecessor institutions, including the Pennsylvania Military College; also houses the Widener Sexuality Project. The archives also include material on the history of Chester, Pennsylvania.
John Anderies: janderies@waygay.org
Philadelphia’s most extensive collection of personal papers, organizational records, periodicals, audiovisual material, and ephemera documenting the rich history of the area’s LGBT community