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Penn Carey Law Biddle Library records
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library [Contact Us]3460 Chestnut Street, Biddle Law Library, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3406
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The Biddle Law Library was originally named the Biddle Memorial Library to commemorate the death of George Biddle on April 6, 1886. George was the eldest son of George Washington Biddle who served as counsel to the University of Pennsylvania in the 1880s. George Washington donated his private collection of 5,350 volumes to the university in memory of his son. This led to the establishment of Penn's first law library at City Hall. The first librarian was hired in 1888. Two years later, the library moved to the sixth floor of the Girard Life Insurance Building at Broad and Chestnut Streets. The library stayed there until 1900 when it moved to the law school's current building in West Philadelphia.
In 1897, Margaret Center Klingelsmith began her 34-year tenure as the Biddle librarian. She traveled to Europe in 1910 to purchase books that would broaden the library's collection and support faculty and student research. The collections continued to grow throughout the 20th century, with focuses on American primary and secondary sources, federal legislative histories, foreign and international law, and archives.
The Biddle Law Library records consist of the following sub-groups:
BLL.001.003.001 Librarian's papers consists of subject files created by individual librarians. The subject files are divided into series based on who created them and these series are arranged chronologically. Within each series, the subject files are arranged alphabetically by topic or organization name. The content of each file varies. They include correspondence, newsletters, minutes, reports, or lists of resources available at the library.
Series I, The Margaret Klinglesmith reports, contain book purchase lists and librarian's reports created during Klinglesmith's tenure as the Biddle librarian from 1897 to 1934.
Series II, The Layton B. Register and Carroll Moreland files, contain folders created by Layton B. Register, who began working in the library in 1931. These files were added to by Carroll Moreland when he became head librarian in 1946. The files include correspondence with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), bibliographies, library committee minutes, correspondence with and reports to the law school Dean, and legal research class materials.
Series III, The Paul Gay files, include correspondence with other librarians, building committee minutes, legal bibliographies, and University Librarian's Assembly meeting minutes. Gay started at Biddle in the early 1940s and worked closely with the wider Penn Library system. This series also documents the work of Biddle Director Morris Cohen. Gay collected Cohen's course materials and reports during his time at the library from 1963 to 1971.
Series IV, the Cynthia Arkin papers, include internal memos, access policies, AALL correspondence, copies of the Biddle newsletter, committee meeting materials, and Research Libraries Group program materials. Arkin served as the Associate Director of Special Collections/Collection Development librarian. Her files span 1966 to 2005.
Series V, the Elizabeth Slusser Kelly files, contain correspondence with donors, librarian's meeting minutes, and event planning from Biddle's 100th Anniversary Gala. Kelly served as director of Biddle from 1984 to 2001.
BLL.001.003.002 Administrative files contain material that was added to the archives over time by librarians. These files include American Bar Association questionnaires for the library, AALL committee files, bibliographies created for courses, book lists, library policies, budget and building planning, photographs of library staff events, and clippings collected by librarians on student activities.
BLL.001.003.003 Exhibits contains files from the exhibitions that Biddle librarians created from 1964 to 2020. The files include planning notes, photocopies or facsimiles of exhibit material, captions and narrative summaries, and pictures of the final display. Some folders also contain original material that was included in the exhibit. Biddle exhibits were revised and reused multiple times. The files are arranged chronologically by the earliest creation or display date available. Please note that the dates on each folder only pertain to the times that the exhibit was displayed, and not the dates of any photocopies or original documents within the folder.
- Librarian's papers (BLL.001.003.001)
- Administrative files (BLL.001.003.002)
- Exhibits (BLL.001.003.003)
Records were transferred to the archives on a periodic basis from Biddle Law Library staff members and departments.
People
- Kelly, Elizabeth Slusser
- Register, Layton B. (Layton Bartol), 1882-1961
- Moreland, Carroll C. (Carroll Collier), 1903-
- Klingelsmith, Margaret Center, 1859-1931
Subject
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library
- Access Restrictions
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The archives reserve the right to restrict access to materials of a sensitive nature.
The archives follow the access policies of the University Archives and Records Center which were adopted by the Board of Trustees in 1990 and revised in 2022. This means that all administrative records of the University are closed for twenty-five years from their date of creation. More information on these protocols is available on the University Archives website.
- Use Restrictions
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Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.