“So when a doctor finds himself lost or astray over some difficult problem, there’s just one thing for him to do. To betake himself to a library, a place whence knowledge radiates, there to get a fresh start. The soul of an institution comes to reside in the library.” - Dr. Harvey Cushing
Why give?
The origin of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is based on the remarkable generosity and vision of three donors who bequeathed their magnificent personal collections as a single gift to Yale University on the proviso that Yale built a library in the heart of the Medical Center suitable to receive these treasures. The gift of this trinity, Harvey Cushing, Arnold Klebs, and John Fulton, has been enjoyed and cherished by scholars, clinicians, and researchers for the past 80 years. By developing rich collections and the tools and expertise to fully leverage them, this library has helped advance research, practice, and scholarship within the School of Medicine and the Yale New Haven Medical Center since 1941.
Your generosity helps ensure that in today’s frenetic information landscape the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library serves as a compass guiding users towards discovery and new knowledge, now and for generations to come. A gift, no matter its size, expresses your commitment to the enduring value of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
"Of all the libraries in all the educational institutions of our world, there is none quite like this one... That large, comfortable, book-lined room... is a sanctum containing the lore and the collected reminiscences of the art of healing. It is a museum, a portrait gallery, a storehouse of the literature of medicine's past, and a refuge from the hurly-burly of modern scientific technology that surrounds it. There is no laboratory or patient-care area of our medical center that is more than a few minutes walk from the high-vaulted, balcony-rimmed reading rooms and its layers of treasured stacks."
- Sherwin Nuland
Doctors: the Biography of Medicine, 1988