Lynne Farrington

Lynne is the Director of Programs and Senior Curator in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Library, where she has served in various special collections roles since 1992. At Penn, she has been responsible for the acquisition of many diverse collections, including culinary books, manuscripts, and ephemera; Japanese illustrated books and prints; children’s literature; archives of photographers, authors, and artists; and the history of American subscription publishing.

Lynne has curated numerous exhibitions, most recently The Time to Right All Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in a Revolutionary Age; organized lectures, conferences, and symposia; and run major grant-funded projects like Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy. She serves as liaison with the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, developing their collection housed at Penn, and has convened colleagues across Penn in developing programming around the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

Lynne serves on the Board of Directors of A Book a Day, which engages the arts to promote literacy among underserved and diverse communities, and is currently President of the Philobiblon Club.