PACSCL new members, September 2003

Welcome New Members!

PACSCL is pleased to welcome three new members in 2003: The National Archives and Records Administration, Mid Atlantic Region; Villanova University; and The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

"PACSCL is committed to the principle of our unique institutions working together to share, care for, and encourage use of the region's rich documentary resources," commented David Moltke-Hansen, President of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and chairman of PACSCL's board of directors. "These three institutions have very different collections of rare or unique printed materials, manuscripts, and photographs that deepen in important and intriguing ways our understanding of ourselves as a city, a region, and a part of a global culture."

NARA Mid-Atlantic Region (downtown Philadelphia facility)

The National Archives Mid Atlantic Region is one of nine regional programs of the nation's official record keeper, preserving and making accessible the historically significant evidence of America's national experience from the first Continental Congress to modern times. In trust for the American people and open to the public, the National Archives enables every citizen to inspect for themselves the record evidence of the American democracy. The Mid-Atlantic office holds records for over 70 federal agencies and the district courts in the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, holding over 110 million historically significant federal records as well as selected records for the entire country. Holdings range from records of institutions such as the Naval Asylum, the Merchant Marines, the National Park Service, and NASA's Langley Research Center to court case files on trademark infringement, treason, fugitive slave law, alleged Communists, patent and copyright, constitutional issues and many more. Records also include cases involving such famous names and events as Patrick Henry, Thomas Edison, Robert Morris, Thurgood Marshall, Robert E. Lee, DuPont Company, Smith Act, Whiskey Rebellion and O'Henry candy bars. Current projects include the launch of a new website, a cataloging initiative, a Teaching American History project in collaboration with the Philadelphia School District, and a variety of public lectures, exhibitions, and workshops.

Rare books at the Villanova University Library

The Special Collections of Villanova University's Falvey Memorial Library are comprised of some15,000 printed volumes along with papers and historical records. Notable sub-collections include holdings in Augustiana, European imprints to 1800, the Hubbard Collection (works by Elbert G. Hubbard and works printed at the Roycrafter Press), the McGarrity Collection on Irish History and Irish-American relations, incunabula, find bindings, Cuala Press and Dolmen Press chapbooks and broadsides, North American imprints to 1820, and Villanovana. . The Library also hosts the university archives as well as the office and collections of the Augustinian Historical Institute, which is dedicated to the heritage of the Augustinian Order. The Library is actively acquiring rare items in Irish history and Irish-American relations and also in the area of Augustinian studies. Current projects include the digitization of the weekly Irish Press newspapers (published in Philadelphia in 1818-1822) and the investigation of a cooperative digitization program to build a "virtual collection" of illuminated manuscripts with Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

LTSP Librarian Karl Krueger displays a Book of Hours to seminary guests at an Advent celebration.

The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP) Krauth Memorial Library has a Rare Book Collection of 3,000 items including a number of original Reformation-era publications, as well as an extensive collection of Lutheran liturgical publications from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The collections include two manuscript Books of Hours and several special editions of the Bible: an Eliot, Coverdale and Tyndale Bible. A second collection comprises the complete collection of a colonial Lutheran pastor, Johann Friedrich Schmidt, who served St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Germantown during the Revolutionary War. His library of 200 items reflects the pietistic training of colonial Lutheran clergy and complements the extensive holdings that document the American Lutheran experience. The Library also hosts The Lutheran Archive Center at Philadelphia, one of nine regional archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Library is in the early planning stages of an expansion that would include new spaces for its Rare Book collection.