Grant projects

Make Work?? Making History!

Staff Happenings, Out of the stacks, Staff projects April 22, 2020April 22, 2020Grant projects, Lecture notes, Paleography, Remote work in libraries, Transcription

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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Digitizing early medical education

Staff Breaking news, Out of the stacks, Staff projects January 29, 2020January 29, 2020Digitization, Grant projects, History of medicine, Medical education, Philadelphia history

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.