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*UPDATE: Beginning November 25, all Yale libraries will be closed to library users. We are happy to announce that we reopened the medical library on Monday, August 24. Our hours of service are: Mon-Fri:             7:30AM - 6:00PM Sat-Sun:           10:00AM – 6:00PM Building access is limited to Yale and YNHH users authorized to be on campus. Visitors will notice many changes to both our on-site services and facilities. Here's what to expect: Visiting Visitors must wear a mask at all times, maintain 6ft distance from others, and adhere to posted signage.   Seating capacity has been significantly reduced throughout the library, and the furniture layout in classrooms, meeting rooms, and study spaces has been intentionally adjusted to comply with Environmental Health and Safety recommendations and should not be moved.   Room reservations have resumed with considerably decreased seating capacities.   The Cushing Center will remain closed until further notice.   While custodial staff will be thoroughly cleaning public spaces daily, surfaces and workspaces must be disinfected by visitors before and after use with the provided cleaning materials. Using, Borrowing, and Returning Print Materials Visitors may browse and retrieve materials they wish to borrow from open stacks. Books and journals used in the library should be left in specified locations for quarantine.   To return borrowed items, please use the book depository located near the entrance of the library.   Print reserves are not available this semester but staff have worked to enhance access to content via online course reserves. Computers & Technology 20 computers are available for use throughout the library and the the 24/7 room. Visitors must clean workstations and equipment before and after use with the provided disinfectants.  Contactless printing has been enabled at printer stations for Yale ID holders. Visitors may also print directly from their laptop via Web Print or from their mobile device (instructions for iOS or Android). The Faculty Video Production Studio is available (reservations required). Special Collections Access to special collections materials is by appointment only for those authorized to be on campus. Please use this link to make an appointment. Please request items at least 2 days in advance. Digitization of materials continues for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 courses, and support for online sessions using Medical Historical Library materials. Continuing Online Research and Education Support We continue to provide many library services online including consultations, instruction, reference, and research support.   Please reach out to your librarian via email.  We're here to support you and we encourage you to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We're excited to welcome visitors back to the library and are relying on everyone to do their part to minimize risk for themselves and others.

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is excited to share that it has developed a public collection of COVID-19 citations to aid the research and clinical practice missions of the Yale Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing and the Yale New Haven Hospital. The collection, accessible through this public Zotero library (no account required), includes daily updates from PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, Disaster Lit, and preprints* from bioRxiv and medRxiv.  This project was developed at the request of Sten Vermund, Albert Ko, and other researchers at YSPH who helped determine the project scope and organization. The citations have roughly been sorted into different topics: epidemiology, immunology, modeling, sequencing, and treatment. There are also folders for different regions and the ability to view the collection by citation source.  Most records include abstracts and all include links for users to pursue full-text access. To access the URL, click on a citation and scroll down to the URL field.  The tool, while thorough, is not the complete record of COVID-19 literature. Other resources in this space include: LitCovid: Curated collection of more than 1,200 journal articles hosted by the National LIbrary of Medicine COVID-19 Open Research Data: Tool leveraging natural language processing to aggregate articles about COVID-19 hosted by Semantic Scholar We opted for Zotero to share this project because of its ability to support public group libraries and its highly relevant retraction watch functionality. You can see more about how we are collecting citations below: PubMed: Citations of journal articles (strategy includes a daily date limit, too) covid-19[tw] OR COVID19[tw] OR COVID-19[nm] OR SARS-CoV-2[tw] OR SARS-CoV2[tw] OR severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2[nm] OR severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2[tw] OR 2019-nCoV[tw] OR 2019nCoV[tw] OR coronavirus[tw] OR coronavirus[mh]  ClinicalTrials.gov: Clinical trials registrations COVID-19 OR Covid19 in the “other terms” search box Disaster Lit: Guidelines, reports, conference proceedings COVID-19 OR COVID19 OR SARS-CoV-2 OR SARS-COV2 OR 2019-nCoV OR 2019nCoV OR coronavirus  bioRxiv and medRxiv: Preprints Utilizing the RSS feed listed here.  Suggestions or sources we should add? Let us know! *Preprints -- which are manuscripts made available prior to peer review -- support the rapid dissemination of information. However, this means that these documents should be critically appraised and monitored for updates.   

Thirty years ago, the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law, prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, schools, transportation, and public spaces.  This exhibition explores disability and disability activism leading up to the passage of the ADA in July 1990.  At a local level, the exhibition discusses disability activism at Yale today, focusing on multiple groups advocating for change across Yale's system.   On display in the Cushing Rotunda March 5th - December 2020

The Medical Historical Library announces the availability of Ms Coll 67 The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art, which includes over 1200 images and items produced between 1850 and 2010 with additional reference materials. The collection is a gift of historian Bert Hansen, Ph.D., whose goal was to document the visual record of medical practice and research and public health in America. Over a period of thirty years, Hansen selected materials produced for the general public (not medical or public health professionals) that use medical imagery as an accompaniment to news items, for advertisements, for political satire, or for decorative items that celebrate medical history. Items in the collection include magazines, prints, posters, film publicity materials, product brochures, and promotional materials.  Hansen also donated photocopied reference materials, such as newspapers, as part of this gift. The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art includes over 600 prints, including chromolithographs and wood engravings from 19th-century magazines like Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Puck, Judge, and Scientific American on topics including Pasteur’s treatments for rabies, cholera, diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, vaccinations, hospitals, mental asylums, unsafe foodstuffs, and public sanitation. There are numerous illustrations using medical imagery in political satire. The collection also contains 20th-century popular magazines such as Life, which often included multiple page photographic essays featuring cutting-edge photographic techniques, Look, Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek, and Time. These magazines regularly reported on medical and scientific advancements and noted medical and public health practitioners. Topics covered in this series include polio, cancer, organ transplants, development of artificial organs, medicine in wartime, midwifery, contraception, fertility, mental health, gender, sexuality, and medical ethics. Finally, the collection includes ephemeral material such as medical history themed frameable prints, publicity materials for Hollywood films about physicians, brochures for medical devices, health department signs, calendars, and event posters.   Hansen has been teaching history at Baruch College of CUNY since 1994. He holds degrees in chemistry (Columbia) and history of science (Princeton).  Prof. Hansen has written on obstetrics teaching in the 1860s, the new medical categorization of homosexuals in the 1890s, the advocacy for public health and sanitation in political cartoons from 1860 to 1900, and the popularity of medical history heroes in children’s comic books.  His book, Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio: A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America (Rutgers University Press, 2009), was honored with an award from the Popular Culture Association and named to the “2010 Best of the Best” for Public and Secondary School Libraries by the American Library Association. All materials in The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art are available for use at the Medical Historical Library reading room. Collection items are listed and described, using information from Bert Hansen’s database, in a finding aid available through Archives at Yale.

The Medical Historical Library is pleased to announce the addition of a new collection to our archives: The Hall-Benedict Drug Company Logbooks and Ledgers (Ms Coll 66), a collection of seventy-five volumes and six boxes, that documents the history of one of the oldest independent drug stores in Connecticut. The collection includes bound prescription logbooks and bound and loose financial ledgers from the Hall-Benedict Drug Company, which was in operation from 1909 to 1998 in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut. The collection contains an almost continuous record of the pharmacy’s operations from 1909 to 1970 and is a wonderful resource for researchers interested in the history of pharmaceuticals, pharmacies in the twentieth century, and business in New Haven. The collection was a gift from Thomas F. and Helen Formichella. History The Hall-Benedict Drug Company was formed in 1909 when Alonzo Benton Hall took on Edward N. Benedict as junior partner. Both men had previous experience in the pharmacy business. Before forming the partnership, Hall operated a pharmacy on Chapel Street in New Haven and Benedict had worked as a druggist and a clerk. Following a national trend of small businesses opening in emerging neighborhoods, they opened the Hall-Benedict Drug Company at 767 Orange Street, a new three-story building located on the northern edge of development in East Rock, New Haven. The business and the business partners were well integrated with the neighborhood. Alonzo Hall and his family lived above the business and Edward Benedict and his family lived on Bishop Street, a few blocks south. The pharmacy provided a message service for local physicians, who would stop by after making house calls, had a bicycle delivery service for customers who couldn’t leave home, and the pharmacy’s soda fountain was a popular hang-out for children from nearby schools and busloads of visitors to East Rock Park. The Hall-Benedict Drug Company remained in operation at 767 Orange Street until 1998, when the business was closed. By that time, they had dispensed over a million prescriptions. During the eighty-nine years it was in operation the Hall-Benedict Drug Company was a family run business. After senior partner Alonzo Benton Hall's death in 1923, junior partner Edward N. Benedict purchased his share and became sole owner of the company and the property. In 1949, Edward N. Benedict died, and ownership of the business and property passed to his wife, M. Katherine Benedict, and after her death to the Benedict's children, Mary Benedict Killion, Frank D. Benedict, and Edward J. Benedict. In 1977 Thomas F. Formichella Jr., Edward N. Benedict’s nephew, who had been with the company since 1953, purchased the business and property and ran the pharmacy until the business was closed in 1998. He passed away in 2007 and his family retained ownership of the 767 Orange Street building until recently. You can still see the Hall-Benedict Drug Company building with the original pharmacy sign capped with the mortar and pestle emblem, ancient symbol of druggists, at the corner of Linden and Orange Streets in New Haven, CT. Prescription Logbooks The Hall-Benedict Drug Company collection includes fifty-two prescription logbooks dating from June 3, 1909 to March 14, 1970. The logbooks are organized by date and each hand-written entry includes a prescription number, the name of a medication, and a name, most likely that of the prescribing physician. In 1909, when the Hall-Benedict Drug Company opened, pharmaceutical companies were producing some medications, but most prescription medicines were made to order by local pharmacies, a process known as “compounding.” Entries in the earlier logbooks of this collection often include the formulas for compounding the medication and directions for patients, which makes them especially interesting. The pharmacists also used the blank spaces inside the book covers to write down useful information, such as formulas for non-prescription medications and products sold by the pharmacy and contact information for local vendors, or to paste in newspaper articles about new medicines or other topics of interest. These logbooks provide researchers with a wealth of details about the use and preparation of medications during a significant time in the history of medicine. Financial Ledgers The Hall-Benedict Drug Company collection also includes 22 volumes and six boxes of financial ledgers dating from May 7, 1909 to December 31, 1967 that contain hand written entries recording income and expenses for the pharmacy. Most of the financial ledgers contain daily income and expense entries with monthly totals, but there are also expense details, summaries and adjustments, balance sheets, profit and loss reports, and a payroll journal. The financial ledgers trace the growth of the business and relationships with vendors, including many local businesses, over a span of almost sixty years. Even for those unfamiliar with accounting, these ledgers provide a wonderfully detailed glimpse into the financial realities of operating a pharmacy in the twentieth century and operating a local family owned business in New Haven. See the Collection All materials in Ms Coll 66 The Hall-Benedict Drug Company Logbooks and Ledgers are open for research and may be requested through Archives at Yale. Selected materials are currently on view in the exhibition cases in the Medical Historical Library reading room through November 2019. Images from top to bottom: 1. Three pharmacists at the Hall-Benedict Drug Company look through prescription logbooks to refill an old prescription. Photo from “A Pioneer Drug Store Fills a Million Prescriptions.” New Haven Register Magazine, December 18, 1960, page 4. 2. John H. Korn, who started with the Hall-Benedict Drug Company in 1917, working at the soda fountain. Orange Street and the lower portion of the sign are visible through the front window. Photo from “A Pioneer Drug Store Fills a Million Prescriptions.” New Haven Register Magazine, December 18, 1960, page 4. 3. Hall-Benedict Drug Company building today with the original sign, East Rock Park is visible in the background. 4. Page from the first prescription logbook used by the Hall-Benedict Drug Company. Prescription entries in this logbook include formulas for compounding medicines and instructions for patients.