STHC-L: The Science, Technology and Health Care Archives Forum

[Previous Posting] [Next Posting]

Biomedical science records & NLM 

Dear Mr. Brush:

I'm writing in response to a post of yours from July 8 which was
forwarded to subscribers to the Society of American Archivists' Science-
Technology-Health Care Archives roundtable.  You wrote in part that "the
National Library of Medicine has an excellent historical section but its
archival holdings focus on 19th-center [sic] physicians....it appears
that the NIH administration is not interested in funding an archive that
would preserve papers of contemporary scientists."

Is "NIH" an error for "NLM"?  I ask because of some recent frustration
that I've encountered with NLM.  We have in the College of American
Pathologists Archives a large microfilm collection consisting largely of
1900-1950 medical periodicals and medical school catalogs.  It came to
us because it was originally assembled by a pathologist, and it was
acquired as part of an attempt that was made in the 1980s to set up a
discipline history center (though nobody involved used that term) for
pathology under the aegis of the College, housed at the U. of Minnesota.
That attempt ultimately foundered and the focus of the project was
narrowed to an organizational archives for the College itself.  Very
little of this microfilm collection has any direct connection with the
College as such, and it seems to me that its potentially great research
value will go largely unrealized unless it can be relocated to a more
visible repository.  In the last couple of years I've made no fewer than
five attempts to get in touch with the manuscripts curator at NLM to
discuss the possibility of dontaing this collection to them, and so far
I haven't even been able to get a phone call returned.  I wondered if
the 19the century focus to which you alllude might provide a partial
explanation for this.

Looking forward to hearing from you at your convenience,

James Carson
Archivist, College of American Pathologists
Northfield, IL
jcarson@cap.org
<STHC-L@library.ucla.edu>   [STHC-L Archives -- Main Index]  [STHC-L Archives -- 1998 Message Index]