​Pre-Freshman Excited To Access Over 6 Million Library Books, With Even More Available Through InterLibrary Loans

Morgan Bernstein (C ’22) is eager to access the 6,540,557 physical volumes held in the Penn Libraries collection when she arrives on campus next fall.

Morgan first heard about the books while on an admissions tour. “When our guide said there were that many books here, I was like ‘Woah. This must be the best college in the world,” Morgan said.

Morgan is also excited to access Penn’s rich multimedia collection. “When you add 115,473 physical audio materials, 46,671 physical video materials, 4,252,117 microforms, 139,570 maps, and 1,010,565 graphic materials, the number is even more impressive,” Morgan said. “Then you count the 192,034 e-journals, 1,834,494 e-books, and 54,413 streaming audio files, and this place seems like heaven on earth.”

The sheer number of library materials enticed Morgan to come to Penn. “On the tour, I could just see myself poring over statutes in the Biddle Law Library or examining manuscripts in the Kislak Rare Books Collection or checking out ancient Talmudic texts in the Katz Jewish Studies Library,” Morgan said.

But, if Penn’s gargantuan collection does not meet Morgan’s research needs, she can use direct request services. “With BorrowDirect, I can get books in three to five business days from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Yale, and the Center for Research Libraries,” Morgan said. “And with PALCI E-ZBorrow, books are available from over 60 academic libraries across Pennsylvania!”