Skip to Main Content

Library, Museums and Press - New Faculty Orientation

Museum Galleries

Mechanical Hall GalleryOld College GalleryPenny Hall -Mineralogical Museum  Mechanical Hall                                 Old College Gallery                                Mineralogical Museum 

Visiting the Museums

  • All museum galleries are free and open to the public.
  • Each museum has new exhibitions every semester.
  • Museum galleries are open Tuesday through Friday from 10 am to 4 pm during the Fall and Spring semesters. For complete hours, see here.

Collections Overview

 

  • The Mineralogical Museum is housed in Penny Hall. Each semester the Mineralogical Museum displays approximately 350 specimens from UD’s renowned collection of minerals. Currently, the collection contains approximately 3000 specimens of minerals, meteorites, gems and carvings. Exhibitions highlight fine crystallized minerals; classics from worldwide and American locations, specimens from significant recent discoveries, and themes such as crystallography and crystal growth.

  • Mechanical Hall and Old College Galleries' particular strengths are in American art of the 20th century (especially prints, photographs, and work by African American artists), as well as European prints, Inuit art, and Pre-Columbian art.

  • A substantial gift by the Atlanta collector Paul R. Jones has served as a point of departure for a growing African American Art Collection. The African American art collection includes the founding Paul R. Jones gift, a broad range of prints from the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, important photographs by P.H. Polk, and representative works by Delaware artist Edward L. Loper, Sr.

What does teaching and learning at museums look like?

  • Museum staff support courses across the disciplines. Staff are available to collaborate on a variety of learning experiences in the museums or in your classroom that utilize museum collections to help advance your teaching and learning outcomes.

  • In addition to current exhibitions, museum staff can also pull materials from storage to achieve your teaching goals.

  • Contact  Ashley Rye-Kopec, Curator of Education and Outreach, Museums if you:

    • Are planning a class visit to the museum spaces either led by museum staff or on your own

    • Need assistance with incorporating the museums into your curriculum 

    • Want to learn more about what the museums have to offer your students

  • To browse museum collections, you can currently view most of the digitized objects on JSTOR. However, we are currently transferring our digitized content to AM Quartext. For more information, and links to collections, please go to https://library.udel.edu/news/2024/07/31/new-digital-collections-platform/