Penn Libraries Announces Online Release of Holy Land Collections

Note: Web address originally referenced has been updated. Please see end of entry for new web address

Philadelphia, PA, March 3rd, 2016—The Penn Libraries is excited to announce the debut of the online home for its Holy Land collections. The Holy Land Collections website features a wide range of special and general collections related to the Holy Land including rare manuscripts, original archeological artifacts, engraved maps, and many other fascinating primary and secondary source materials.

Among the most important collections in the series is the Lenkin Family Collection of Photography. This collection, purchased in 2009 with a generous donation from Edward J. Lenkin (C ’71 PAR ’12), consists of over 5,000 early photographs of the Holy Land dating from 1850 to 1937.

This project was made possible through the leadership of Carton Rogers, Vice-Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries, an ongoing partnership with the National Library of Israel and its Director General, Oren Weinberg, who supported the digitization of the entire Lenkin Family Collection; and the invaluable vision and advice of Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities and Vigevani Professor of European Studies at the Hebrew University, Dror Wahrman. Kislak Center Digitization Specialist, Dennis Mullen; Digital Photographer, Ardon Bar Hama; and devoted Penn Libraries volunteer and cataloger, Louise Strauss (C ’82) were also integral partners to the project.

 

Explore the Holy Land Collections for yourself :

dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/holyland/index.html

 

 

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About the Penn Libraries
The Penn Libraries serve the world-class faculty and students of Penn’s 12 schools. The Libraries’ collections comprise more than 7 million volumes, over 100,000 journals, some 2 million digitized images, and extraordinary rare and unique materials that document the intellectual and cultural experience of ancient and modern civilizations. Through our collaborative relationships, we supplement Penn’s great local collections with physical access to the Center for Research Libraries (approximately 5 million items), the combined holdings of the Ivies (more than 70 million volumes), and exclusive electronic access to some 2 million public domain titles in the HathiTrust. Today, the Libraries play an instrumental role in developing new technologies for information discovery and dissemination and are noted for groundbreaking work in digital library design.  To learn more about the Penn Libraries, visit http://www.library.upenn.edu.

 

About the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is a research institute within the University of Pennsylvania devoted to post-doctoral research on Jewish civilization in all its historical and cultural manifestations.