Today I finally make my way to Van Pelt Library, one of 15 (15!) libraries on campus (it is right by the gigantic broken button, if you’re looking for it).
Apparently the collection consists of:
The Penn Library holds more than 5 million printed volumes, 3.8 million items in microform, and subscribes to more than 40,000 current serial subscriptions.
and:
The Library’s print collections are growing by approximately 110,000 volumes per year. New acquisitions are selected from scholarly and literary works published in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and Africa.
What finally brought me to this Ivory Tower bastion of knowledge? Was it a thirst for knowledge that only one of the finest Research University’s Libraries could quench? Was it a soul-crushing guilt that I have been working in a place with 15 libraries for over a year and a half and I hadn’t visited one of them (and I call myself a bibliophile)?
Nope and nope.
I wanted to read Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, so I checked the library’s catalog, and lo and behold not only was there a copy, but it wasn’t checked out.
I read it tonight, and all I can say is, sign me up; the obsession continues!
I will leave you with Sarah’s thoughts on Philadelphia:
The nice thing about Philadelphia is that no one has moved there to find the good life in over two hundred years.
Oh, and she used the word ‘oeuvre’ (read this post for the significance).
Hey, Sarah, I’m single.