Happenings

The Library is Open!

Staff Happenings, Uncategorized

WE HAVE EXCITING NEWS!

Our Historical Medical Library is now open to the public on weekends, for the first time in its 200+ year history! You’ll find rotating exhibits of rare books, artwork, and more. The best part? Your admission to the Library is included with tickets to the Mütter Museum!

“Up until now, the only way to access our collection was by appointment or viewing our digital collection,” said Heidi Nance, Historical Medical Library Director. “Opening our doors to visitors on the weekends represents a new phase for one of Philadelphia’s greatest hidden treasures, sitting just above the iconic Mütter Museum.”

Thanks to the vision and generosity of our Trustees and our 2021 Giving Tuesday donors, the Library doors are now unlocked and welcoming Museum visitors on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Reserve your weekend ticket >>

Our Library was created by the College’s Fellows in 1788 and was Philadelphia’s central medical library for over 150 years, serving its medical schools, hospitals, physicians, and other health professionals. It contains 300,000 rare books, art, historic medical photographs, medical trade ephemera, first editions, and woodcut art, plus scrolls, stone tablets, lithographs, daguerreotype photos, handwritten letters, and many more remarkable items. The jewel of the Library is a collection of more than 400 books printed before 1501, called “incunabula.” The oldest book on-site was printed in the 13th century.

“As we’ve worked to make The College of Physicians of Philadelphia more accessible in a variety of ways, inviting the public into the Historical Medical Library has long been a dream,” said Dr. Mira Irons, our President and CEO. “The complementary collections within our Museum and Library work together to tell a story of the past, present, and future of medicine.”

“Now, more than ever, it’s important that the public be exposed to medical history. Understanding where we’ve come from helps us to understand, and appreciate, the present — and look towards the future of healthcare,” continued Dr. Irons.

We can’t wait for you to see it!

P.S. If you don’t already, make sure to follow our Twitter and Instagram accounts!

Watch us on Youtube!

5 Things You Didn’t Know We Were Up To

Staff Happenings, Out of the stacks, Staff projects, Staff research

Greetings, loyal followers.  

We’ve missed you. We’ve been quiet here for a while, and that’s because we’ve been incubating projects and programs behind the scenes. Here’s a sneak peek at what we’ve been up to… 

Drawing of woman pregnant with 20 children
Paré, Ambroise, 1510?-1590, “Woman pregnant with twenty children.”

One – Newly Renovated Norris 

We’re renovating the historic Norris Reading Room to create a refreshed and welcoming space for researchers to view our materials on a desk or in display cases.

Black and white photograph of Norris Room fireplace.
Norris Room photograph from the Sturgis Photograph Collection.

 

Two – Moving Some Materials 

We’re moving some of our collections offsite to create space, improve discoverability, and expand access to our incunabula, medieval manuscripts, and archives. 

Writer bearing a wreath of leaves on his head consults two books at an ornate lectern.
“Writer” woodcut printed by Johann Grüninger, artist unknown.

 

Three – Testing for Toxins 

Did we mention medieval manuscripts? We’re testing several illustrations and illuminations in our oldest items to better understand the toxic pigments used by their creators. Initial results have been promising and point to the presence of orpiment, cinnabar, vermilion, and more. 

Illuminated page with illuminated initial in blue, red, and green ink.
Giles of Rome, Archbishop of Bourges, “De regimine regum et principum.” Italy; early 14th century.

 

Four – Digitization 

We’re expanding our digital collections starting with letters, medical trade ephemera, and scrapbooks on smallpox and influenza vaccinations. 

Symptoms of smallpox, chickenpox, cowpox, and vaccinia, four skin diseases characterized by pustules, depicted in 24 labeled figures.
Tardieu, Ambroise, 1788-1841, “Pustules : variole, varicelle, vaccine, vaccinelle.”

 

Five – Expanding the Team 

We’re hiring! Do you want to spend your days working with a collection of incunabula, manuscripts, archives, monographs, maps, multimedia and more that dates to the 13th century? Come work with us as an Archivist, Special Collections and Rare Books Librarian, or Special Collections Project Librarian (2-year term) 

Detailed information and application instructions on our website.   

Image of a prosthetic hand engineered so that a patient without a hand can write.
Paré, Ambroise, 1510?-1590, “Prosthetic hand.”

Check back often for updates! We have much more to show you …  

 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Silences in the LAMS: Digital Surrogacy in the Time of Pandemic

Staff Breaking news, Happenings , , ,

CALL FOR PAPERS: “For the Health of the New Nation” Virtual Conference
Title:  Silences in the LAMS: Digital Surrogacy in the Time of Pandemic
Date:  October 12, 2020 (VIRTUAL)

Intro: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, in conjunction with the CLIR-funded project For the Health of the New Nation (FHNN) through a partnership with the Philadelphia Area Consortium for Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), invites proposals for a one-day, online conference on the use of digital primary sources.

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GIF Our Stuff!

Staff Education and outreach, Happenings, Out of the stacks , , ,

Are you missing our collections as much we are? You can always view some items in our digital image library and on the Internet Archive.

Now we’re inviting you to interact with our digital images in a brand new way! Inspired by the annual GIF IT UP! contest, we’re asking you to create original animated GIFs using select digital content from our image library.
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Make Work?? Making History!

Staff Happenings, Out of the stacks, Staff projects , , , ,

Like most cultural institutions in the greater Philadelphia area, the Historical Medical Library (HML) along with the rest of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, closed to the public in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We closed in a hurry, with about 3 hours warning.  Our focus was on securing the collection before we gave thought to what files we might need to take home with us to support work for an unknown period of time.

And being a librarian is challenging when you are away from your collection, particularly since the HML staff had been working intently on collections maintenance prior to closure.  But as those of you in the profession know, there is always “virtual” work that can be done from the comfort of home.
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Medicine at Ground Level: Digitizing State Medical Journals with the Medical Heritage Library

Staff Happenings, Staff projects , , ,

As part of its partnership with the Medical Heritage Library, the Historical Medical Library (HML) of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia has completed a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded initiative Medicine at Ground Level: State Medical Societies, State Medical Journals, and the Development of American Medicine, 1900-2000. 

The Medical Heritage Library has released 3,907 state medical society journal volumes free of charge for nearly 50 state medical societies, including those for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, through the Internet Archive (http://www.medicalheritage.org/content/state-medical-society-journals/). The journals – collectively held and digitized by Medical Heritage Library founders and principal contributors The College of Physicians of Philadelphia; the Center for the History of Medicine, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine; The New York Academy of Medicine Library; the Library and Center for Knowledge Management at the University of California at San Francisco; the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health; the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries; and content contributor the Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Founding Campus, with supplemental journal content provided by the Brown University Library, the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System, and UT Southwestern Medical Center Health Sciences Digital Library and Learning Center –  consist of almost three million pages that can be searched online and downloaded in a variety of formats.

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Freeing the LAMS from the Silos; or, How We Learned to Love MARC for the Sake of BIBFRAME

Staff Breaking news, Digital spine, Happenings , , ,

On April 1st, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia released what we lovingly refer to as the “Digital Spine,” one of the few catalogs in the United States that merges descriptions of, and access to, library, archival and museum collections.

Approximately 145,000 bibliographic records for collections in the Historical Medical Library and approximately 28,000 records for objects in the Mütter Museum will be merged in a single, cross-searchable database.  To sample this integration, go to https://cpp.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/library and search for “foreign bodies.”

 

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