Information about the Library Company's graphics collections can be accessed on the on-line catalog WolfPAC, the digital collections catalog ImPAC, local and web-mounted finding aids, and by contacting the Department's knowledgeable staff. An increasing number of digital images of graphic materials and ephemera are available on ImPAC, through links to records on WolfPAC and/or through links in the Print & Photograph Department section of the Library Company's website under " collaborative projects ” and "featured collections."
WolfPAC
The on-line catalog WolfPAC currently contains over 13,000 descriptive catalog records representing approximately 30,000 items or roughly 40% of our graphic holdings. These records can be accessed separately from the book collections by selecting "graphics" in "collections to search" or by selecting "visual materials" as a format qualifier in "limit search to."
Graphics records mounted on WolfPAC primarily describe materials catalogued under several special subject cataloging grants and include all of the Afro-Americana collections and a large percentage of our 19th-century and early 20th-century photography collections, as well as images related to the Civil War, Philadelphia business and industry, and regional philanthropic and educational institutions. The on-line catalog also includes records from our old graphics card catalog primarily describing 19th-century engravings and photographs of the Philadelphia area.
ImPAC
ImPAC currently contains 35 digital collections including almost 5,000 images. It features digital images from our 19th- and early 20th-century photographic collections, a sampling of Civil War ephemera, comic valentines, song sheets, finding aids from the John A. McAllister Collection, and almost 100 portraits of American women. In addition, ImPAC includes a growing number of digital images of 19th-century cloth book bindings and book cloth grains . For more information about ImPAC click here.
Finding Aids
Local databases inventorying other materials in the Print & Photograph Department collections can be accessed in the Print & Photograph Department reading room or by contacting the Print Department staff. These databases primarily provide item-level access to large 19th and early 20th century photographic and ephemera collections. Collection descriptions, inventories and sample digital images of holdings described in local databases are increasingly available through WolfPAC and in the Print Department's "featured collections" section of the website.
Featured Collections
The inventories mounted in the "featured collections" section are designed to enhance catalog records on our on-line catalog WolfPAC by providing descriptions and lists of the contents of graphics and ephemera collections accompanied by a representative sampling of images from each collection. Inventories can be accessed both through links from the featured collections page and from WolfPAC.
Publications Featuring Library Company Images
The Library Company has published three books on its photographic holdings:
Print & Photograph Department, Library Company of Philadelphia. Center City in the Nineteenth Century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006).
Kenneth Finkel and Susan Oyama. Philadelphia Then and Now. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1988).
Kenneth Finkel. Nineteenth Century Photography in Philadelphia: 250 Historic Prints From The Library Company of Philadelphia. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980).
The Library Company holds many of the images illustrated and described in the following:
Bernard F. Riley Jr. American Political Prints 1766-1876. (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1991). Also available on-line at http://www.harpweek.com/
Martin P. Snyder. City of Independence: Views of Philadelphia Before 1800. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975).
Martin P. Snyder. Mirror of America: The Developing Life of Philadelphia Seen in Engravings 1801-1876. (Gladwyne, PA: Martin P. Snyder, 1996).
Nicholas B. Wainwright. Philadelphia in the Romantic Age of Lithography. (Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1958). Digital images of the Library Company's holdings are available at http://www.lcpgraphics.org/wainwright/
Edwin Wolf. Philadelphia: Portrait of an American City. (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 1990).
Edwin Wolf 2nd and Marie Elena Korey, eds. Quarter of a Millennium: The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731-1981 (Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1981).