Penn Libraries
The Penn Libraries network includes 19 physical libraries, recognized for their collections, and a digital library known for innovation and richness of content. Through exhibitions and lectures, and through the acquisition and preservation of literary and artistic artifacts, the Penn Libraries documents a wealth of social and historical periods, bringing scholarship to life at the University and in the various communities it serves.
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Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1666 - Ars logicae : in Aristotelis Logicam Quaestiones (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1666, commentaries on Aristotelian logic divided into six sections. Written in Italy in the 18th century. Record on Franklin (link to digitized copy): https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962934853503681Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1665 - [Alchemical compilation]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1665, a collection of treatises on Hermetic works, the philosopher's stone, with instructions for the transmutation of metals, creating artificial diamonds, and alchemical recipes for powders, elixirs, and occasional medicinal remedies. Includes a table of contents (p. iii-x). Written in France(?), between 1750 and 1799. Record on Franklin (link to digitized copy): https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962934963503681Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1669 - [Works on spirits and their sigils]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1669, a collection of works primarily focused on spirits and their sigils that includes numerous tables, drawings, and diagrams of magical symbols and their properties. Also includes additional sections on making rings of invisibility (f. 40r) and for uncovering thefts (f. 44r). Written in France[?] in the second half of the 18th century.Publication Penn Library's LJS 501 - [Bifolium from Liber completus...]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 501, a bifolium from a 14th-century manuscript copied in England of the mid-13th-century Latin translation by Aegidius de Thebaldis (assisted by Petrus de Regio) of the Old Castilian translation of an 11th-century Arabic treatise on astrology. The text on the bifolium is from Book 5 and Book 6 of the work, which are in the section concerning nativities. The bifolium has been bound in reverse so that the leaf with the end of Book 5 and the beginning of Book 6 (and the historiated initial marking the division) are on the first leaf, followed by the originally earlier leaf containing material from Chapter 14 of Book 5. Two marginal section headings (f. 2r) in the same hand as the text; a few brief marginal annotations. Written in England in approximately 1320.Publication Penn Library's LJS 500 - Liber mirabilium. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 500, an alchemical and medical compendium containing recipes and texts from a variety of sources, many of which appear with traditional (now suspect) attributions in other manuscripts, with an alphabetical index to recipes at the beginning of the volume. Occasional manicules and annotations added by readers. Written in Piran (then under the control of the Republic of Venice, in modern Slovenia), between 1452 (f. 1r) and 1455 (f. 98v). The date 1451 also appears in the manuscript (f. 99v).Publication Penn Library's LJS 499 - [Igeret orḥot ʻolam] ... [etc.]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 499, a geographical treatise on the locations of all dispersed Jewish peoples, including the first mention of the New World in Hebrew, a diagram representing the sky over the New World, and accounts of the coasts of Africa, India, and the Far East, followed by a copy of a brief 15th-century treatise on chess. Written in northern Italy, probably Ferrara, after 1525 (Edna Engel).Publication Penn Library's LJS 498 - [Tsurat ha-arets] ... [etc.]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 498, a collection of astronomical texts in Hebrew from source texts ranging from the 11th to the 16th centuries. Subjects include geography, the Ptolemaic model of the universe, solar and lunar eclipses, and the astrolabe. Frequent marginal notes and glosses, some from copied from known commentaries to these works. Possibly written in Gratz, in the second half of the 16th century, after the first edition of Erasmus Reinhold's Theoricae novae planetarum Georgii Purbacchii Germani in 1542, some of which is copied alongside the Hebrew translation of Peurbach (f. 188r-196v), on paper with watermarks similar to those on paper produced in Gratz in the 1580s and 1590s (Les Enluminures).Publication Penn Library's LJS 496- Treatise on practical mathematical calculation (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 496, beginning of a survey of practical applications of mathematics (abacho), algebra (alghorismo), and geometry (fighura) for commercial purposes such as banking or trade, in a larger format than most commercial mathematical manuscripts; missing leaves at end. Spaces left for initials ranging from 3 to 8 lines in height. Written in Italy in the last quarter of the 15th century (Sotheby's).Publication A Comparative Evaluation of the Share-VDE Search System(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-07-03) Hahn, Jim; Ahnberg, Kayt; Giusti Serra, LilianaThe Share-VDE search system (https://svde.org) shifts the library discovery paradigm from record-based indexing and retrieval to that of linked data entity exploration. This paper reports results of iterative testing of multiple versions of the Share-VDE interface. The testing included remote user experience (UX) interviews with a total of twenty participants across four rounds of tests spanning two years. The comparison among participants encompassed catalogers, students of all levels, and faculty. Synthesizing IFLA LRM user tasks with interface evaluation methods supported the qualitative inquiry into how linked data systems in general, and BIBFRAME specifically, can support search system objectives.Publication Sociotechnical Automation Science: A Case Study in Developing and Augmenting an Ensemble Neural Network with Multiple LLMs for Subject Cataloging at the Penn Libraries(2024-06-26) Hahn, JimThe sociotechnical aspects of automation play a crucial role in the development of machine learning systems. Through deep collaboration with cataloging professionals at the Penn Libraries, we have created a set of subject indexing algorithms that are ensembled into a neural network. Librarians have evaluated multiple rounds of the algorithm outputs. By identifying the failure points in the neural network-based subject assignment process, we incorporated LLM tasks such as evaluating search result relevance, summarizing search results, and assessing topical assignments of synthetic summaries. Implementing LLM tasks draws on the linguistic strengths of LLMs, rather than world knowledge. The data processing is integrated into an Apache Airflow pipeline, allowing librarians to input an Excel file, which begins the workflow for generating candidate subject descriptions. These machine learning outputs are poised for a pilot test in production systems this summer.