Last Friday the Rosenbach’s collections department took a field trip up 20th Street to visit our new colleagues in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library. We’re no strangers, having worked together though PACSCL (the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries) for years and having researched at the Free Library and borrowed from them for past exhibitions, such as Chosen in 2007. But it was nice to have an excuse to get together, discuss our work, and get to see some of their wonderful collections.
In our brief visit we got to see some highlights from the Elkins Room (including a map by John Dee, a fascinating character who is featured on our Magic hands-on-tour), fantastic material from their Pennsylvania German collections, as well as their First Folio, several medieval books of hours, and the Ferrara Bible (which our curator Judy Guston remembered vividly from Chosen). We all wished we had more time, but luckily this is only the beginning.
Here is Janine Pollock, the head of the rare book department, retrieving a book for us in Elkins room. To learn more about William McIntire Elkins and his collecting, you can check out this essay by Ellen Schaffer. We all coveted the elegant library ladder that you see in the foreground of this picture, but it seems that the staff actually use the more prosaic steps that Janine is standing on.
Kathy Haas is the Associate Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog
I agree with you there, it is nice excuse to get together, discuss your work and see some collections. Wish you can have time to go back there and take some pictures of their collections. Thanks for sharing.
Canadian Visa