Penn State Harrisburg Library Culture & Community Resources
- Madlyn L. Hanes Library, Penn State HarrisburgThe Madlyn L. Hanes Library also offers a wide array of course-integrated instruction, research workshops, and library tours.
The library strives to create monthly displays that highlight awareness months (Native American History Month, Black History Month, Women's History Month, Disability Awareness Month) and focus on the contributions to our society of members of these communities.
Harrisburg’s Juvenile Literature Collection is the largest collection of PreK-12 materials among the Commonwealth Campus Libraries. It serves academic researchers, teachers and teacher education students, and families in the region. Every year, the library acquires new titles reflecting cultural and social diversity, including many Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpre, Rainbow/Stonewall, and other DEIAB award winners.
Harrisburg’s Archives and Special Collections provides unique, in-depth, curated DEIA material and services. Here is more information on these collections and services.
- Our DEIAB Collections house an ongoing development of monographs and streaming media that support the college's minors in African American Studies, including African American art, film and media studies, history, music, and popular culture as well as the newly-approved minor in Spanish at Penn State Harrisburg. Existing collections are continuously enhanced for supporting the study of LGBTQIA+ Studies as well as Latinx Studies.
- Archives and Special Collections DEIAB services further integrate trauma and neurodiversity-informed practices with the development of library and archives exhibitions and displays. Creating exhibits that maintain the library as a welcoming and safe space for everyone, regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, race, gender, or sexual identity, increases our commitment to DEIAB initiatives. These exhibits are designed as easy-to-read, sans serif fonts for text and, when possible, providing alternative audio/video resources. More information is available here: DEIAB-focused library exhibitions and displays in 2023.
- Alice K. Marshall Women’s History CollectionThe Alice K. Marshall Women's History Collection (1546-1997) which consists of ephemera, graphic, literary, and manuscript materials dealing with the issues and individuals that comprised women's history from the 1500s to the early 1980s, although the bulk of items are from the mid-1800s through the mid-1980s. Compiled by Alice Kahler Marshall (1923-1997), the collection encompasses all areas of women's lives and includes 7,000 books and pamphlets (many of which are rare), over 6,000 postcards, more than 400 periodical titles (magazines and newspapers), and thousands of other materials—advertisements, book and magazine illustrations, broadsides, business and advertising trade cards, comic or vinegar valentines, diaries, fashion plates, manuscripts, photographs, pinback buttons, postage stamps including first-day covers, posters, sheet music, and more.
- PA Forward at Madlyn L. Hanes Library, Penn State HarrisburgThrough PA Forward, Penn State Harrisburg offers programming each semester that focuses on building lifelong literacy skills that are beneficial outside of the classroom. In these programs, we often focus on historically marginalized groups or perspectives. For example, in the past year, we have offered a program on domestic violence issues facing the Latino and LGBTQ+ communities and are hosting monthly book clubs which have highlighted the experiences of Black women, Japanese Americans, Latinos, disabled people, Chinese Americans, and incarcerated women.
- Diversity in STEMLinks to databases and resources for diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Resources related to race, ethnicity, geography, culture, gender, sexual orientation, ability/disability, and other differences.
- The Council on Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity (CORED)CORED serves as an advisory and consultative body to the Chancellor, providing college leadership with innovative, evidence-informed recommendations related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Diversity and Educational Equity CommitteeThe mission of the Penn State Harrisburg Diversity and Educational Equity Committee is to create and engage in activities cultivating a safe and supportive campus community that values diversity and fosters good citizenship.
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Penn State HarrisburgA feature where the college’s assistant dean for DEIAB and the college’s assistant director for student DEIAB share their thoughts on DEIAB efforts at Penn State Harrisburg.
- Holocaust and Genocide Collection (Library)Located in the library and within the Linda Schwab Holocaust Reading Room, this collection is supported by a permanent Holocaust and Genocide Library Endowment and continues to grow in perpetuity through the generous support of Capital Campaign donations from Harrisburg-area community members. The collection is the largest specifically devoted to Holocaust studies in Central Pennsylvania. It consists of over 1,000 books and media, including classic and scholarly works by leading historians in the field, as well as personal accounts, general histories, reference sources, documents, juvenile books, curriculum materials, and conference proceedings in all formats. Subject areas covered in the collection include works on ghettos, concentration camps, resistance, liberation, survivors, children of survivors, diaries, memoirs, biographies, non-Jewish victims, Righteous Gentiles, theology, post-war trials, and reparations. Photographic studies, art, music, fiction, poetry, and drama are also contained in the collection. Genocide titles focus on Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. These materials support courses in Holocaust studies, history, education, humanities, psychology, religion, ethics, public affairs, and women's studies.
- Holocaust and Jewish Studies Collection (Archives and Special Collections)Located in Archives and Special Collections, the Holocaust and Jewish Studies Collection consists of seven, distinct archival resources that document the lives of Harrisburg-area Holocaust survivors, including the Linda Schwab Papers, the Toni Klar Collection, as well as the Samuel and Kay Freiberg Papers. Some materials in the collection, including 69 oral histories of Holocaust survivors and liberators, were donated by the Jewish Federation of Greater Harrisburg to the Penn State Harrisburg Library and subsequently preserved in the archives. Additional acquisitions have been received by Dr. Simon Bronner, former Director of the Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies at Penn State Harrisburg.
- Linda Schwab Holocaust Reading RoomEstablished in 2007 with the generous support of Harrisburg-area Holocaust survivor, Linda Schwab, the Holocaust Reading Room is located in Room 113 on the first floor of the library and is part of the college's Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies. The Reading Room includes materials from the library's Holocaust and Genocide Collection and provides space for gallery presentations of art and documents of the Holocaust and Jewish experience. Described by former Penn State Harrisburg Chancellor, Madlyn L. Hanes, the Reading Room serves as "a living memorial to the Holocaust" and is unique in its design and purpose. The Reading Room’s video and audio recordings of survivors, liberators, and witnesses in Central Pennsylvania allow visitors to learn about and preserve local connections to the Holocaust, while special collections, exhibits, documents, and oral histories offer additional perspectives.
Culture & Community around Harrisburg
- Campus MapNavigate the menu on the left to locate ADA Accessible facilities, the Campus Food Pantry, All-Gender Restrooms, Lactation Rooms, and Meditation Spaces (where applicable at each campus)
- Campus InformationA comprehensive undergraduate college and graduate school located eight miles east of Harrisburg, Penn State Harrisburg brings nationally accredited academic programs, award-winning faculty, and the resources of a world-class research university to Pennsylvania's Capital Region.
- Lower Swatara TownshipLower Swatara Township is a township in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 9,557 at the 2020 census.
- Dauphin CountyDauphin County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 286,401. The county seat and the largest city is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital and ninth largest city.
- Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDCWe are a catalyst for dynamic job creation that seeks to improve economic growth, mobility and vitality while enhancing the quality of life in our region: Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties.