Othmer Library After Hours

Join us for a fun and interactive evening event exploring rare books, archives, and library collections.

It's National Library Week!

This year, we’re celebrating America’s Semiquincentennial with the theme “A Blast Through the Past: 250 Years of American Science.”

Explore the scientists, ideas, and technologies that have shaped our world from 1776 to today through our unique collections. Highlights include

• Oxygen from Air to O III explores four centuries of discovery about oxygen, from Priestley and Lavoisier’s experiments in the 1700s to the development of spectroscopy in the 1800s, and how that knowledge shapes astronomy today.
• You Can See It, It’s Electric (Boogie Woogie Woogie) sheds light on the history of electricity in the U.S., with Philadelphia at its core featuring Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and the city’s charged relationship with electricity.
• “A Snapshot of the American Film Revolution” captures the evolution of photography from delicate daguerreotypes to the revolutionary innovations of Kodak, highlighting the transformation of photography from a specialized practice into an accessible medium for everyday life.
• Synthetics in America traces the rise of modern materials, from celluloid and polymers to Nylon and beyond. Explore the science behind everyday objects through a hands-on comparison.

See rare and modern treasures, support the library by adopting a collection item, enjoy our annual book-themed cake, and take home a souvenir!

About the Othmer Library

The Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History is an independent research library encompassing the history of chemistry and related sciences and industries.

The Othmer Library was founded in 1988 when Donald and Mildred Topp Othmer announced their challenge grant to be given for the creation of a library that would work to preserve the history of the chemical sciences. The library now houses more than 150,000 print volumes, rare books and manuscripts, archival materials, and historical photographs. Together these collections—spanning nearly six miles of shelves—form an unrivaled resource for the history of chemistry and related sciences, technologies, and industries.

Featured images at top:

Page 8, Famous Names in Chemical History: Joseph Priestley (1938).

Detail of Fig. 20: Explosion of a flask filled with a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases, from Triumphs & Wonders of Modern Chemistry, 1913.