Brigitte Weinsteiger

Brigitte Weinsteiger was appointed H. Carton Rogers Vice Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries on June 1, 2024. She previously served as Interim Director, as the inaugural Gershwind and Bennett Family Senior Associate Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communications, and in a wide range of other roles including Associate University Librarian for Collections and Director of Collection Development.

She directs the strategy, advancement and growth of the Penn Libraries’ preeminent collections while promoting academic engagement both on campus and with the Greater Philadelphia community, overseeing the Libraries’ $27 million budget for collections, its 8.5 million print and electronic volumes, and a rich array of digital resources. She leads the Collections and Scholarly Communications division of the Penn Libraries, ensuring that the selection, acquisition, management, and preservation of the Libraries’ collections meet the diverse needs of the Penn community; and for overseeing outreach to faculty and students at Penn, in Philadelphia, and beyond. Departments under her purview include Collection Strategy; Preservation; Acquisitions, Access, and Licensing; Scholarly Communications; Library Counsel; Academic Engagement; Research Services; and Community Outreach. She is also responsible for administering the libraries serving professional schools and specific subject areas. These include the Biomedical Library, Chemistry Library, Dental Library, Fine Arts Library, Lippincott Library, Math/Physics/Astronomy Library, Museum Library, Music Library, and Veterinary Library.

Externally, Brigitte also represents Penn on various committees and councils, including the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. (PALCI), NorthEast Research Libraries consortium (NERL), the HathiTrust, and the Center for Research Libraries. She has also been appointed to a number of advisory councils and boards representing the publishing industry, including Project MUSE, JSTOR, EBSCO Books, and Emerald.

Before coming to the Penn Libraries in 2008, Brigitte worked at Penn’s Biddle Law Library and at Penn State University in the Center for Medieval Studies and in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library. She holds an MA in Liberal Arts, focusing in medieval studies, from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MS in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. She also holds two BAs from Penn State, where she concentrated in medieval studies and the history of art. Brigitte is proficient in German and the Lower Palatinate dialect.