Did You Know?

Besides our usual exhaustive offerings, University Libraries contains a wealth of fascinating collections, videos, recordings, and memorabilia. Here are some of our treasures.

Ernest Hemingway Letters

A selection of unpublished letters of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), part of an acquisition by the Penn State University Libraries of the last sizeable and significant known collection of the author's letters in private hands. The collection, amassed by his sister Madelaine ("Sunny") Hemingway Mainland and passed on to her son, Ernest Hemingway Mainland, includes more than 100 letters, telegrams, and notes from Ernest Hemingway to his family, dating from 1917 to 1957.

Posted from northern Michigan, Kansas City, Milan, Toronto, Paris, Pamplona, the village of Schruns in the Austrian Tyrol, from Valencia, Montana, Key West, Bimini, Cuba, and Nairobi, Hemingway's letters home not only chart his movements through his eventful life and career, but track the course of his relationships with his parents, siblings, wives, and sons.

Three Mile Island Recovery and Decontamination Collection

is located in the Penn State Engineering Library at University Park. The collection has several thousand videotapes, reports, and photographs that were generated during the 1979-1990 cleanup and recovery of the Three Mile Island 2 (TMI-2) nuclear reactor. All of the materials are available for public use, and the contents of the videotape and report collections are searchable through two separate databases.

The John O'Hara Study

in our Special Collections Library is located on the first floor of the Paterno Library. It is a reconstruction of the famous Pennsylvania author's personal workspace. Mr. O'Hara's study was donated to Penn State posthumously, to compliment many of the author's works that are housed in the Libraries.

United Steel Workers of America

In 1967, the Penn State University Libraries' Historical Collections and Labor Archives (HCLA) became the official repository fro the historical records of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). This body of material documents the internal and external activities of every hierarchical level of the organization. The main components of the USWA Archive are the records from the International executive Board, elected officials, staff departments, and district and local union offices. The verbatim transcripts of the Executive Board proceedings provide insight into the Steelworker's second-highest policy making body. The files of the international officers reveal the union's relations with the labor movement, state governments, and the daily administration of the organization.

The Autographs Collection, 1682-1972,

contains engraved portraits, letters, and autographic documents by notable American, French, and European politicians, presidents, and military leaders such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Clay, Gifford Pinchot, and Franklin Roosevelt.

Penn State Sports Archives

The Sports Archives include more than 4000 football films and videotapes, beginning with the 1929 film of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State. The collection also includes football footage of the 1948 Cotton Bowl, highlight films dating back to 1952, footage of scrimmages, and films of practice sessions, Blue-White games, and almost every regularly scheduled game since 1957.

The videotape collection includes footage of selected basketball, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, ice hockey and gymnastic events since 1950.