Notes from the Reading Room: Stewardship and the Semiquincentennial

by David Rhys Owen, Manager of Collections Stewardship & Engagement

Printed books in the Rosenbach’s historic West Library. Photograph by Rasheena Wilson

United States, Declaration of Independence: manuscript copy. [ca. 1794]. Rosenbach Museum & Library, AMs 1084/7

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: Printed for A. Bell, bookseller ... Boston, [1773]. Rosenbach Museum & Library, A 773p.

Photograph by Rasheena Wilson

The vvhole Booke of Psalmes: faithfully translated into English metre ... . [Bay Psalm Book]. Cambridge [Massachusetts]: [Stephen Day], 1640. Rosenbach Museum & Library, A 640w.

Photograph by Tracie Van Auken

In this semiquincentennial year, as the United States marks 250 years since the signing and adoption of the Declaration of Independence,let’s explore how the Rosenbach Museum & Library cares for its collections of American history and literature.

The Rosenbach facilitates research and creates programs and exhibitions inspired by a collection of nearly 400,000 rare books, manuscripts, and fine and decorative arts objects. In 2022, the Rosenbach was awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to support the creation of a modern, online, and publicly discoverable library catalog, and to improve access to information about these collections by researchers and audiences around the world. 

Thanks to additional support from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Pine Tree Foundation, the library catalog, Rosy, is live and being constantly updated with new information. Librarians, Elizabeth E. Fuller and Nancy Loi, continue to add material and enhance records, but the catalog already includes information about significant areas of our collections, including much of the Rosenbach's holdings of the literature of Great Britain and Ireland, Continental literature, and about 60% of the personal library of the modernist poet, Marianne Moore.  

For the semiquincentennial, Rosy also includes our printed Americana and American literature, and most of our American manuscripts. These areas of our collections include showstopping objects related to the founding of our nation, from some of the earliest printed broadsides of the Declaration of Independence [A 776i; A 776inc], to a manuscript transcript of the Declaration showing Thomas Jefferson’s original wording and the text that was eventually adopted [AMs 1084/7]. Selections from this manuscript are currently on display in the inaugural installation of Treasures from the Rosenbach’s Collection: History & Literature of the Americas. 

Making information about our collections more accessible is only one part of stewardship. Just as important is the ongoing work of preserving and responsibly managing the material itself. As we provide unprecedented access to our collections via hands-on programs and research visits, we must balance this approach with strategies to ensure that these forms of engagement remain sustainable for the long term. This is a collective effort. Guided by the expertise of our librarians and curatorial staff, colleagues from throughout the museum help to undertake stewardship tasks. Together, we care for the collections and help ensure that the Rosenbach's rare books, manuscripts, and fine and decorative arts objects remain available for future generations. 

So, what do these stewardship tasks and projects involve? The Rosenbach has a modest but crucial fund to support smaller-scale conservation projects every year, and staff have collaboratively drawn up a shortlist of priority objects based on an agreed set of criteria: is the object important for a particular interpretive or research purpose? Is it reliably used in different contexts to make these interpretations? Is conservation work required to continue using and interpreting it?  

Applying these criteria, staff quickly identified a clear conservation priority for 2026. Our first edition of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral [A 773p], published in London in 1773, required remedial conservation to ensure its continued use in programs, exhibitions, and research. Wheatley is recognized as the first African American to publish a book of poetry, and her later work would champion the American Revolution and its ideals of liberty and equality. The book will soon be undergoing treatment a few blocks west of the Rosenbach, at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA). It should return to our shelves in 2027.  

Another, equally essential aspect of collections stewardship is inventory. While frequently less visible than cataloging or conservation projects, the maintenance of a reliable and up-to-date inventory is integral to the management of any collection. Is every book on the shelf where we expect to find it? Is every manuscript filed appropriately, in its correct sequence? While answering these key questions, the process also provides opportunities to document cataloging anomalies where information may be absent, inaccurate or incomplete, or else to note condition or housing concerns to return to in future stewardship work.  

In 2024, staff completed a monumental shelf read, where every printed book was inventoried on the bookshelves in the libraries in our historic house. The project included our holdings of printed American history and literature. Then, in summer 2025, staff began inventorying uncollected manuscripts. As of spring 2026, approximately 1,200 folders of material have been accounted for (and individual pages counted) across the primary run of American manuscripts, as well as additional folders in our collections of legal and church documents from colonial Mexico and Peru, and our "Signers Set,” an assemblage of documents signed by signatories of the Declaration of Independence.  

The manuscript inventory has largely been completed by staff otherwise responsible for the planning and delivery of Signature and School and Teacher Programs; these colleagues are skilled in handling rare collections, and benefit from time spent with underutilized material in library storage. In a recent smaller-scale inventory and rehousing project, Dr. Alexander L. Ames, Curator & Senior Director of Collections Engagement, identified a number of broadsides [A 770t; A 773to; A 773tot] that can be utilized to highlight the relationship between tea, taxation, and the American Revolution, in the fall Rosenbach Presents program, The Philadelphia Tea Party: Celebrating American Classical Music with Flautist Olivia Staton and Harpist Elizabeth Hainen of the Philadelphia Orchestra. 

Together, these projects show how cataloging, conservation, and inventory all contribute to the same goal, and ensure that the Rosenbach’s collections remain accessible and responsibly managed during this anniversary year and beyond.  

Notes from the Reading Room is a monthly segment on the Rosenblog. Learn about our efforts to manage and care for some of the best-known literary and historical objects in the world, and to make our collections available to researchers and other audiences around the globe.

References and further reading

“Collections Stewardship Standards.” American Alliance of Museums, https://www.aam-us.org/programs/ethics-standards-and-professional-practices/collections-stewardship-standards/ [Accessed 17 May 2026].