Breaking news

The Library is Open!

Staff Breaking news, Happenings

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 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!

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.

Read more

Digitizing early medical education

Staff Breaking news, Out of the stacks, Staff projects , , , ,

We are pleased to announce that over 20,000 pages of lecture notes and related material has been digitized to date as part of “For the Health of the New Nation” grant.  “For the Health of the New Nation: Philadelphia as the Center of American Medical Education, 1746-1868” is a two-year project funded by CLIR and organized by the Philadelphia Area Consortium for Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL).  The initiative will digitize, describe, and provide access to 140,000 pages of lecture tickets, course schedules, theses, dissertations, student notes, faculty lectures notes, commencement addresses, opening addresses, and matriculation records, sharing not only the voices of the medical greats, but also the often unheard voices of students.

Read more

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.”

 

Read more

Healing Energy: Radium in America, a New Digital Exhibition at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Staff Breaking news, From our researchers, Happenings, Staff projects , , , ,
Dr. Robert Abbe (1851-1928)
Dr. Robert Abbe (1851-1928)

Throughout history, the Fellows of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia have been at the forefront of many advancements in the history of medicine, not least of whom was Dr. Robert Abbe, a pioneer not only in the field of plastic surgery, but also in the use of radium in medical therapy.

 

 

Jeffrey Womack, a Library volunteer and doctoral student at the University of Houston, and Tristan Dahn, Digital Projects Librarian at the Historical Medical Library, explore the discovery of radium by Pierre and Marie Curie, and tell the story of early experimentations with radium, including Dr. Abbe’s self-experimentation, and the use of radium in such “health” products as the “Radium Emanator.”

Pamphlet advertising The Saubermann Radium Emanation Activator, circa 1900.

Abbe’s long correspondence with Marie Curie culminated with her visit to the College in May 1921, during which Curie donated the piezo-electrometer currently on display in the Hutchinson alcove of the Mütter Museum.

Quartz piezo electrometer, donated to the Mütter Museum by Marie Curie in 1921.
Quartz piezo electrometer, donated to the Mütter Museum by Marie Curie in 1921.

The exhibit may be viewed at http://bit.ly/1Qpl4qA or by going to http://www.cppdigitallibrary.org/exhibits/.

Jeffrey Womack is a doctoral student at the University of Houston, completing his dissertation on the development of radium and x-ray therapies between 1895 and 1935, under the direction of Martin Melosi. His recent publications include “Nuclear Weapons, Dystopian Deserts, and Science Fiction Cinema,” in Vulcan: The International Journal of the Social History of Military Technology 1, No. 1 (2013; Bart Hacker, editor), and “Miracle in the Sky: Solar Power Satellites,” in American Energy Policy in the 1970s, (Robert Lifset, editor; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Environmental History. Jeffrey is currently based in the Philadelphia area, where he teaches at Drexel University.

Tristan Dahn is a recent graduate of the Library and Information Studies program at McGill University. He joined the Library staff in September 2015, and is currently overseeing the digitization of 20th century state medical journals through the Library’s partnership in the Medical Heritage Library. Tristan also is leading the Library’s experiments in the digital humanities.

Cleaning Up Bad Data and Finding Hidden Collections: How ArchivesSpace Makes Our Archives Accessible

Staff Breaking news, Happenings, Staff projects , , , , , , ,

As is the case in so many libraries and archives, the manuscript collections at the Historical Medical Library used to be difficult to find, let alone search. Some were available through the College website as (essentially) text files. Unless a researcher knew the name of the collection he or she wanted to consult, it was virtually impossible to find the correct information.

The old interface researchers saw when searching our finding aids
The old interface researchers saw when searching our finding aids.

Read more

All History is Local: Using Philadelphia Collections in National History Day Projects

Staff Breaking news, Education and outreach, Out of the stacks , , , , ,

I have been involved with National History Day (NHD) since 2001 as both a judge and as a librarian. Judging this competition is exciting – middle and high school students put their heart and soul into projects, some of which are of exceptional caliber. Working with NHD as a librarian can be frustrating – students seem to stick with the same 10 broad topics, all of which can be researched with little more than a few clicks on Google.

I am going to tell students a deep, dark secret held closely by NHD judges: if we, the judges, read another paper, or see another exhibition, about the atomic bomb, or about the Salem witch trials, or about Alice Paul, we might start screaming. The impact of the atomic bomb on international relations, or the impact of the trials on the development of government in New England, or Paul’s impact on women’s suffrage cannot be denied. However, I’ve read a paper each year since 2001 about the atomic bomb, regardless of the annual theme of NHD, papers with bibliographies that are created using nothing but sources that are found online.

Read more