After careful review, the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and Yale New Haven Health System have decided to cancel their joint DynaMed subscription.    Access to DynaMed will end on June 30, 2024.   The Medical Library continues to provide access to alternative point-of-care tools, such as UpToDate. For more information, please view our Support for Clinicians & YNHH page.    

Data as Art" Exhibition: Call for Submissions     “Every story is complicated until it finds the right storyteller.” – Anonymous   As we celebrate 10 years of the Bioinformatics Support Hub at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, we invite you to share your visual responses to the prompt “Data as Art." Though data representations hold specific scientific meaning, some datasets and data visualizations also possess inherent artistic sensibility on their own. Cultivating an appreciation for data as art can reframe our conception of data as orderly, objective evidence into iterative, multifaceted artifacts produced in the non-linear search for new knowledge. We invite you to submit "data as art" in conversation with this idea. All selected entries will be on display in the rotunda of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library from late August 2024 to January 2025. Inclusion Criteria:  Quantitative Data Representation. Your work should visually depict quantitative data.  Digital Works. We're seeking digital files   Yale affiliates Exclusion Criteria:  Human Identified Data. Please refrain from using identifiable human data.  Raw Data. Submit a representation of data (visualizations and aggregations of the data), not the raw data (e.g. data files such as .fastq, scripts, etc).  Three-Dimensional Objects. We're focusing on bi-dimensional representations for this call.  Submission Details:   Digital file: .pdf, .jpeg, .tiff  Image resolution: at least 300 DPI  Image size: at least 1 MB, max 1GB  Image description: Include a title and a brief explanation of the data and the methodology used.  Limit 3 submissions per person  Please acknowledge the use of artificial intelligence and what program  Deadline:  Please submit your entry by May 17, 2024 If you have a YNHH email, please contact us directly to submit your entry: bioinfo.cwml@yale.edu More Information: Data as art refers to representations of data (visualizations and aggregations of the data) with an aesthetic. Any data representation -- as long as it does not contain personally identifying information -- is eligible if the submitter believes the work is artistic or conveys meaning beyond the information encoded in the data itself. Consider submitting a data representation born from a mistake but that led to something aesthetically beautiful.  If you're passionate about merging science and art, this call is for you! Let's transform data into art and showcase the beauty beyond the numbers together.  Questions: Please contact bioinfo.cwml@yale.edu

The Medical Historical Library in the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library is welcoming applications for a fellowship for the study of medical photographic history. The Stanley B. Burns M.D. Fellowship for the Study of Medical Photographic History supports the study of the history of medical photography at Yale, maximizing the research potential of the Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection. We welcome applications from all interested researchers, regardless of their institutional association, race, cultural background, ability, sexual orientation, gender, or socioeconomic status. Applications from scholars utilizing traditional methods of archival and bibliographic research are encouraged as are applications from individuals who wish to pursue creative, interdisciplinary, and non-traditional approaches to conducting research using the Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection and related visual collections at the Medical Historical Library. In any given year the award is up to $2,000 for one week of research. Funds may be used for transportation, housing, food, and photographic reproductions. The award is currently limited to residents of the United States and Canada. A complete fellowship application includes: A research proposal (1,200 words max) that outlines: Significance of the proposed collections research to your larger project Value of your project to your field  Feasibility of completing the scope of research proposed within the fellowship period Please note: If you anticipate consulting other Medical Historical Library materials beyond the Burns collection, please indicate those clearly in your application.  Budget  Curriculum vitae Two letters of recommendation  Please apply through this link. The deadline for applications is midnight, April 28th, 2024.

On view in the hallway and rotunda from February 19th – August 16th, 2024 Curated by Melissa Grafe, Ph.D. and Laura Phillips, Ph.D. Mindscapes tells a story about mental health—its visibility, classification, and treatment—through the archival and visual art collections of the Medical Historical Library. Instead of a sweeping grand narrative of medical progress, Mindscapes presents a constellation of short stories that illuminate shifting cultural attitudes and scientific approaches to mental health over time. At stake in these stories are challenging, contested topics around mental health that intersect with Yale School of Medicine’s own histories. Two additional cases in the Historical Library, curated by Erin Sommers (History of Science, Medicine and Public Health Major, class of 2025) and Krupa Hegde (History of Science, Medicine and Public Health Major, class of 2025) as part of Marco Ramos’s fall 2023 course, Race and Mental Health in New Haven, discuss the Connecticut Mental Health Center’s connections to community and care. All items on display are from scrapbooks in the newly cataloged Connecticut Mental Health Center records, part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository.   This exhibition is part of a multi-institutional effort to highlight mental health through collections and communities. It stands in dialogue with the exhibition, Munch and Kirchner: Anxiety and Expression at the Yale University Art Gallery (February 16  –  June 23, 2024), and the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) community art exhibition, Mindful: Exploring Mental Health Through Art (foyer of the Medical Library, February 21st – August 2024), which is sponsored by the YSM Program for Art in Public Spaces. Image: Depression, 1935, lithograph  Blanche Mary Grambs, also “Miller Grambs” (1916–2010), printed by George C. Miller (1894–1965)

Stata MP is now available for all faculty, staff, and students. Stata is a statistical software package that is widely used across many disciplines for data analysis. To download Stata MP, sign in to the Yale Software Library and select Yale Licensed Software from the top navigation. Next, choose StataCorp. Anyone currently using the SE or BE edition of Stata can upgrade to MP. The campus-wide license also includes other editions, such as SE or BE, but MP is the fastest and can analyze much larger datasets.   Upcoming Stata workshops: First Steps with Stata - January 26, 1:30-3:30 pm Second Steps with Stata – February 2, 1:30 – 3:30 pm For any questions, please direct them to dissc@yale.edu.    

Written by Michael Ortiz-Castro, Harvard University Ferenc Gyorgyey/Stanley Simbonis YSM’57 Research Travel Grant recipient, 2023-2024 Medicine shows were grand spectacles—among some of the first large scale, public, and free theatrical venues in the United States. The spectacles were incredibly popular in the U.S., particularly in the South and the West, from the 1870s to about the 1930s, when they were displaced by films and moving images. These shoes were designed to sell patent medicines—tonics, tinctures, and creams akin to today’s “As Seen on TV” medicines. These medications were popular throughout this era, until increased regulation in the early 20th century led to the development of properly vetted medications. Medicine shows, in their attempts to sell to customers, borrowed theatrical elements from other genres such as vaudeville and, significantly, minstrel shows. While historians of medicine who write on the history of these spectacles have noted the show’s problematic usage of images of Native peoples, not many have talked about the usage of blackface elements.[1] The collections at the Medical Historical Library in the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library help historians further interrogate the usage of images of the Other in these shows, and, as I argue in my dissertation, help understand how medicine shows “performed” American identity through their linking of race, prosperity, and health. The 1930 film “The Medicine Man” tells the story of Dr. John Harvey, a traveling salesman who lands in a nameless American town and falls in love with young Mamie, who is abused, along with her siblings, by their domineering German father.  Harvey’s traveling circus attracts the attention of Young Mamie, and the film details their romance and his rescue of Mamie from her father’s plans to marry her off to a rich older German.[2] [3] The movie’s plot is lifted from the traveling show of the same name, which was used to market Pawnee Pepto—a patent medicine that promised to cure all kinds of ailments in its consumers. While the film spends more time on the romance between Dr. Harvey and young Mamie, an informed viewer will see vestiges of the original source within the film—a short scene of Harvey’s presentation in the town, and other characters’ acknowledgement of the impressive “Indian” traveling with him. Consider the film’s official movie poster, which features Jack Benny in the titular role front and center. He is flanked by a motley crew of characters—two women in Hawaiian inspired costume, a man dressed as the devil, and the “Indian”. The film poster, however, when juxtaposed with a shot of the live medicine show, reveals a critical occlusion: a blackface character, who flanks Dr. Harvey on the stage. From the scant archival record, it’s hard to say what role these characters played in the medicine show. Scholars who write on medicine shows have claimed that Native characters associated with patent medicines often served as “verification”—as symbols of unvarnished nature that could speak to the efficacy and “healthiness” of the medicine.[4] What role, then, might have the blackface character have played? Historians of the minstrel genre note that blackface characters allowed white Americans to both reinforce their racist perceptions while also allowing a comical outlet for anxieties and fears over difference and equality (given that minstrel shows became incredibly popular following the Civil War).[5] Positioned alongside the Native figure, the audience might have read the blackface character as “verifying” much like the Native chief. But what did this figure verify? Consider the context of the photo of the live show. The shot captures the climax moment—where Dr. Harvey convinces the young protagonist to run away with him. The characters flank him, like ghosts, reminding the viewer of all the medicine has given him: good health, good morality, and good prosperity. The selling point of the patent medicine was not just that it was good for you—but it could deliver proper health, proper morality, and wealth, the hallmarks of the American “good life”. Other ephemera from the Medical Historical Library’s collections allow us to see how blackface/minstrel characters figured into the cultural life of patent medicines. These advertisements for patent medicines used blackface characters to appeal to white customers’ ideas of domesticity and health. The first ad, for Beecham’s Pills, depicts a black domestic worker, jovially dancing as she holds a small tincture box. The ad’s caption—“What Am Good For De Missus Am Good For Me”—is the ad’s selling point: the black woman’s recognition of the medicine’s value, in her role as the caretaker of the home (the “Mammy” figure), is how the customer comes to understand the value and efficacy of the medicine. Though, as historians have noted, Native peoples were used as symbols of nature that could “verify” the medicine, the deployment of Black bodies as imagery here instead relies on the peculiar domestic relations developed in slavery. That is repeated in the ad on the right, where the prosperous consumer is quite literally “fed” the medicine (here, Sanford’s Ginger) by his stereotypically depicted black servant. The customer’s trust in the medicine comes from the relationship between the white character and his black servant –the servant’s duty and joviality ensure the viewer that the medicine is, indeed, reliable—like the enslaved. These images suggest that patent medicines, medicine shows, and their associated visual ephemera are best understood not merely as deceptive medical ads, but as cultural forms that, like minstrel shows and vaudeville shows, served to make clear certain cultural ideologies of difference and health operative in late 19th century U.S. Patent medicines were attractive as objects precisely because they spoke to some of the major anxieties at play: economic security, good health, and prosperity to come. Though medicine shows remain undertheorized among historians of medicine, these collections allow us to begin to uncover the genre’s relation to other problematic cultural productions active during the era. [1] Tomes, Nancy. 2005. “The Great American Medicine Show Revisited.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 79 (4): 627-63. https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2005.0173.; Armitage, Kevin C. 2003. “Commercial Indians: Authenticity, Nature, and Industrial Capitalism in Advertising at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” The Michigan Historical Review 29 (2): 70–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/20174034.; Price, Jason. 2011. “'The Best Remedy Ever Offered to the Public': Representation and Resistance in the American Medicine Show.” Popular Entertainment Studies 2 (2): 21–34. [2] The Medicine Man, Directed by Scott Pembroke (Tiffany Pictures, 1930). [3] While the record trail is scant on the medicine show from which the movie derived, historian Irina Podgorny’s “‘Please, Come In’: Being a Charlatan, or the Question of Trustworthy Knowledge” speaks of the show as separate from the film, which implies the existence of the show prior to the movie. [4] Armitage, “Commercial Indians”. [5]“Blackface: The Birth of an American Stereotype.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, November 22, 2017. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/blackface-birth-american-stereotype.        

Yale School of Nursing Centennial (1923 - 2023) On view in the Cushing Rotunda August 18, 2023 - January 14, 2024 Please join us for our newest exhibition celebrating 100 years of the Yale School of Nursing. The core mission of Yale School of Nursing (YSN) is “better health for all people.” As we celebrate YSN's 100th anniversary, we take this opportunity to explore and reflect on the school’s first century. Highlights of this exhibition include the assessment that helped found YSN as a completely new model of nursing education; the immense growth and change across the student population and faculty; the innovative methods of pedagogy and research inside and outside the classroom; a long tradition of community and global service; and a glimpse of the school today. Curated by Janene Batten, Ed.D., MLS; Courtney Brombosz, MLS; and Melissa Grafe, Ph.D. View the full schedule of centennial celebrations on the YSN website.

The Medical Library is pleased to annouce a new banner exhibition "This Lead Is Killing Us: A History of Citizens Fighting Lead Poisoning in their Communities" produced by the National Library of Medicine. The exhibition is on view in the corridor between SHM L 112A/B from July 3 - August 12, 2023. "This Lead Is Killing Us" explores the story of citizen action taken against an environmental danger. Lead exposure can cause neurological problems and sometimes even death; yet this metal has been pervasive in many aspects of American life for over a century. Historically, mining, battery manufacturing, smelting, and enameling industries included lead in their production processes, impacting factory workers and consumers. Manufacturers added lead to household paints and gasoline, endangering the health of families and polluting the air through exhaust fumes. To protect themselves against the dangers of lead poisoning, scientists, families, and individuals opposed industries, housing authorities, and elected officials. This Lead is Killing Us companion website includes an education component featuring a K-12 lesson plan that challenges students to examine historical cases of lead poisoning through primary and secondary sources. A digital gallery features a curated selection of fully digitized items from NLM Digital Collections that showcase numerous historical scientific studies and reports about the dangers of lead. The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition and companion website. Image: During the 1960s and 1970s, environmental movements led to increased governmental action, including publications that warned parents of lead in homes. Lead Paint Poisoning in Children...a Problem in Your Community? U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973. Courtesy National Library of Medicine.  

Access to American Hospital Association (AHA) Data After years of requests for American Hospital Association (AHA) data, the Medical and Marx libraries at Yale have made access to this important U.S. hospital data available for all Yale affiliates. Containing multiple decades of annual survey and supplemental datasets, this data resource provides information about U.S. hospitals' organizational structure, service lines, utilization, finances, insurance and payment models, and staffing, enabling peer comparisons, market analysis, and health services research. To access AHA data, create an account on the platform, Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS), with your yale.edu email address. To learn more about how to get started, consult this research guide. If you already have a WRDS account, access AHA data now. Quick facts about AHA Data: 40+ years annual hospital survey data, dating back to 1980 1,000+ data points about U.S. hospitals for each survey year In addition to survey results, additional hospital data has been curated by AHA, including data and information from government sources, hospital accrediting bodies, and other organizations as well as AHA's financial database Beyond the data itself, WRDS features include a query builder, manuals, data dictionaries, documentation, and more to facilitate data use  

We are pleased to announce awards for our first Ferenc Gyorgyey/Stanley Simbonis YSM’57 Research Travel Grants since 2019, to two recipients, Michael Ortiz (Harvard University) and Jiemin (Tina) Wei (Harvard University). Ortiz’s proposed project, “American Nature: Life and Political Community in Post-Reconstruction United States, 1877-1927,” shifts the debate on citizenship away from strictly legal and social conceptions, focusing on a new concept of biological citizenship, a consequence of developments in the life sciences, that was operationalized in everyday society. As part of his research at the Medical Historical Library, Ortiz will examine holdings that reflect the cultural life of medical knowledge, such as the Cancer “Cures” Collection and the Medical Trade Card Collection; the Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art; and the William Helfand collection of medical ephemera, as well as archival collections in Sterling Library. Wei’s project,” Ameliorating Fatigue at Work: Workplace-Management, Mind-Body Medicine, and Self-Help for Industrial Fatigue in the U.S., 1910s-1940s” asks not how stress came to be, but how stress-adjacent disorders and the worker came to be subsumed as such under scientific investigation. Wei aims to rethink received notions about the relationship between work, fatigue, and its resolution, particularly focusing on the mediating role played by emergent or evolving scientific subdisciplines at the turn-of-the-century. During her research at the Library, Wei plans to examine the Harvey Cushing papers, Stanley B. Burns, M.D., historic medical photography collection, Pamphlets on public health issued by state government agencies, 1905-1942, and the Spa and Mineral Waters Collection, as well as archival collections in Sterling Library. The Medical Library also awarded its inaugural Stanley B. Burns M.D. Fellowship for the Study of Medical Photographic History to Amadeus Harte (Princeton University). Harte’s project, “How Medical Images Produce Objectivity,” investigates how historical medical images were used to designate objective ideas of "normal" and "pathological" physiology cross-culturally. Please join us in congratulating our newest cohort of fellows at the Medical Historical Library!

Spring 2023 graduates will continue to have access to the Medical Library and to library resources (print and digital) until September 2023. After September, graduates are eligible for tiered borrowing privileges.  Alumni privileges for the Medical Library include: Stacks Pass: Access to the Medical Library facilities and stacks. No borrowing privileges. Free.   Alumni Standard Borrowing: Access to the Medical Library facilities and stacks; borrowing privileges for up to 10 items; loan period is 61 days or when privilege expires (whichever is lesser). Purchased in 3-month increments, $45 per increment or $150/year.   Alumni Premium Borrowing: Access to the Medical Library facilities and stacks; borrowing privileges for up to 50 items; loan period is 61 days or when privilege expires (whichever is lesser). Purchased in 3-month increments, $60 per increment or $200/year.   Remote Access: Alumni can freely use JSTOR collections licensed by Yale.   Additional alumni privileges are available through Sterling Memorial Library (including tiers with interlibrary loan service). For free tools and resources available on the web, visit Alumni Resources for the Health Sciences.   

Yale Library has finalized the APC (article processing charge) discount agreement with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. This agreement reduces APC charges from $3,700 to $2,000 per article in the following CSH journals: Genes & Development, Genome Research, RNA, and Learning & Memory. APCs are reduced from $2,250 to $1,215 in Molecular Case Studies. The standard article processing charge, applied to all articles to offset publishing costs, will be waived for open access articles. As a reminder, Yale Library provides support for authors publishing in open access journals through APC waivers and discounts. Visit Open Access Publishing Support for more information. Current APC waivers: Association for Computing Machinery Cambridge University Press Journals Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP) Journal of Agriculture Food Systems, and Community Development Microbiology Society PLOS Portland Press Current APC discounts: BioMed Central Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press MDPI PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Science Advances from the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) Springer Open  

The Medical Historical Library of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University is pleased to announce its fourteenth annual Research Travel award for use of the Historical Library. The deadline is April 30th, 2023. The Ferenc Gyorgyey/Stanley Simbonis YSM’57 Research Travel Grant is available to historians, medical practitioners, and other researchers outside of Yale who wish to use the Historical collections of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. In any given year the award is up to $2,000 for one week of research.  Funds may be used for transportation, housing, food, and photographic reproductions. The award is limited to residents of the United States and Canada.  The award honors Ferenc A. Gyorgyey, former Historical Librarian, and Stanley Simbonis, M.D, a 1953 graduate of Yale College and a 1957 graduate of Yale School of Medicine, who graciously gifted an endowed fund in support of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. For application requirements and the link to submit application materials, please refer to our fellowship page: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/historical/research/grant

The Medical Historical Library in the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University is pleased to announce its first fellowship for the study of medical photographic history.  The Stanley B. Burns M.D. Fellowship for the Study of Medical Photographic History supports the study of the history of medical photography at Yale, maximizing the research potential of the Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection. We welcome applications from all interested researchers, regardless of their institutional association, race, cultural background, ability, sexual orientation, gender, or socioeconomic status. Applications from scholars utilizing traditional methods of archival and bibliographic research are encouraged as are applications from individuals who wish to pursue creative, interdisciplinary, and non-traditional approaches to conducting research using the Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection and related visual collections at the Medical Historical Library. In any given year the award is up to $2,000 for one week of research. Funds may be used for transportation, housing, food, and photographic reproductions. The award is currently limited to residents of the United States and Canada.   The fellowship is a gift of Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, an ophthalmologist and Research Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, and Professor of Medical Humanities at New York University: Langone Health. He began collecting historic photography in 1975, and over time amassed over a million images that he curated in multiple books, articles, and exhibitions. For the application requirements and the link to submit application materials, please refer to our fellowship page: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/historical/research/fellowships-grants/burns-fellowship

    On display in the Cushing Rotunda, March 22 - August 13, 2023 A touchstone of murder mysteries and historical intrigue, tactical warfare and political coups, poison looms large in our cultural imagination. An invisible agent of death, it might be hiding anywhere, stashed in a secret agent’s suitcase or mixed into a murderous martini.  Less glamorously, but even more palpably, it lurks in our everyday lives as well, creeping in through garden plants and exotic pets, household cleaners and rainwater runoff, medicine cabinets and art supplies. Broadly defined as any substance which can cause serious illness or death if introduced into the body (e.g.: ingested, injected, absorbed) if it’s administered in the right quantity and conditions, a deadly poison can be just about anything.  This exhibit traces major developments in medical, legal, and public knowledge of poisons in America as they have been used for both good and ill. Looking back through the lore of classical antiquity turns up mythical poisons and their antidotes: the paralytic stare of the cockatrice; the salvific unicorn horn. Poison plants and venomous vipers found fame in the ancient world as well (Socrates was supposedly poisoned by hemlock; Cleopatra by an asp)--though illustrated 19th century herbals, early 20th century pharmaceutical guides, and even 21st century textbooks underscore how many of these same toxins can also be used in life-saving medications. Other exhibit highlights include food adulteration and household poisons, developments in forensic toxicology, and even a 19th century New Haven murder trial. From cartoons and campy tunes to labwork and legal testimony, poison is everywhere–come see! Curated by Sophia Richardson, doctoral candidate in English, Graduate School for Arts and Sciences 2022 curatorial fellow, with the assistance of Dr. Melissa Grafe and the staff at the Yale Medical Historical Library.  For a current look at poisoning today, take a look at this blog post Data Librarian Kaitlin Throgmorton developed in conjunction with the exhibition and National Poison Control Week. Image descriptions: Cover from Clarence C. Wiley’s Carbarlick Acid Rag. Printed by Jerome H. Remick & Co., 1905. Sheet music collection on medical themes. Gift of William Helfand, 2013.   “Death’s Laboratory.” Cover of Collier’s Magazine. 3 June 1905. Reproduction from Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University   Plate featuring the foxglove plant from William Withering’s An account of the foxglove, and some of its medical uses : with practical remarks on dropsy, and other diseases. Birmingham (England): Printed by M. Swinney, for G. G. J. and J. Robinson, London, 1785.   Title page from Moyse Charas's New experiments upon vipers. Containing also an exact description of all the parts of a viper, the seat of its poyson, and the several effects thereof…London: Printed for J. Martyn, 1673.

Valentine's Day is a great time to show your appreciation for someone special. And nothing says "I appreciate you" more than a delightfully corny, medically themed Valentine's Day card, created by Access Services Librarian Megan Nance. Stop by the Medical Library to fill one (or many!) out, or download the files below to send a pun-filled message!        

The Medical Lens: Highlights from the Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection January 27, 2023 - March 10, 2023 (EXTENDED TO MARCH 19TH!) Join us at the Medical Library for our newest Rotunda exhibition! Medicine is a field grounded in the visual world. Over the centuries, illustration became increasingly embedded in the medical field via textbooks, posters, and other visual medium. With the development of photography in the early nineteenth century, medicine acquired a new way of viewing the patient. Besides being integrated in medical education and training, photography became a means of creating professional identity. To the larger world, medical photography helped shape the image of medical care and the profession, promoted technological advancements, sold products, and influenced public policy. The Medical Lens explores the importance of photography in medicine through images selected from the recently acquired Stanley B. Burns, MD, Historic Medical Photography Collection at Yale University. The collection encompasses a wide variety of photographic and print techniques including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes from the earliest years of photography, cartes de visite, cabinet cards, lantern slides, photo albums and collections of prints assembled by medical practitioners, postcards, and publications.  Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, is an ophthalmologist and Research Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, and Professor of Medical Humanities at New York University: Langone Health. He began collecting historic photography in 1975, and over time amassed over a million images that he curated in multiple books, articles, and exhibitions. Dr. Burns is pictured standing in front of his photo wall containing some of the most iconic images from the Burns Archive, which he established in 1977. This exhibition is curated by Katherine Isham, MLIS, and Melissa Grafe, PhD, with the valued expertise of Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS. The curators want to thank Chris Zollo, Kelly Perry, Laura O’Brien-Miller, Terry Dagradi, Dana Haugh, and Melanie Norton for their additional assistance in bringing this exhibition to life. Please see the exhibition object list to begin exploring the items on display. Click to open the object list Case 1: Introduction -F. R. Reynolds and classmate before and after receiving their medical degrees at Rush Medical College, tintypes, 1883 -Florence Nightingale photographed by H. Hering, “Photographer to the Queen,” carte de visite, circa 1856-1857 -James Samuel How (Howe), MD, dead from cholera epidemic, St. Louis, Missouri, daguerreotype with obituary notice, 1849 -Ava V. Chadwick-Herns’s Battle Creek Sanitarium pamphlet with added photographs and notations, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1906-1907 -“Synoviales de la main” (dissection of the hand to show synovial system), 1870 and “Pelvi-support contre-extenseur” (counter-tension pelvic support), 1873 from Revue Photographique des hôpitaux de Paris. Gift of Stanley B. Burns, MD, 2020. Case 2: Medical Identity and the Profession (1) Meade brothers studying medicine, Victor, New York, tintype, circa 1860-1865 To be replaced mid-February with: (1) Two medical students studying anatomy with book, bones, and dissected arm, tintype, circa 1860-1865 (2) Dental extraction staged scene, tintype circa 1855-1865 (3) Portrait of Dr. Matthew Gill, “A student of Esculapius,” photographer S. Krausz, Chicago, cabinet card, circa 1891-1892 (4) Portrait of a visiting nurse, photographer John Suchy, Chicago, cabinet card, circa 1898-1900 (5) “Dr. Gridley’s first operation,” amputation surgery staged in a photography studio, photographer W. A. Hopkins & Company, Rapid City, South Dakota, cabinet card, 1891 (6) Elderly pharmacist with bottles of medicines, hand-tinted ambrotype, circa 1860-1866 (7) Physician/pharmacist using microscope, New York, gelatin silver print, circa 1895 (8) Pharmacist and assistant in a pharmacy, gelatin silver print, circa 1900 (9) Portrait of Danish nurse with red cross armband, photographer Mary Steen, Copenhagen, carte de visite, circa 1893 (10) Three nurses on the steps of the Lincoln School for Nurses, Bronx, New York, gelatin silver print, circa 1930 (11) Fordham Hospital medics with horse-drawn ambulance, gelatin silver print, circa 1892-1900 (12) Group photo of women interns at the Children’s Hospital of San Francisco, gelatin silver print, 1925-1926 Case 3: Medical Spaces and their Meanings (1) Dr. Bernstein, dentist, in his office, gelatin silver print, circa 1945 (2) Surgeon William L. Rodman’s clinic in the operating theater of the Medico Chirurgical Hospital, Philadelphia, photographer C. E. Waterman, gelatin silver print, March 26, 1902 (3) Exterior view of Mount Sinai Hospital from series “Views in New York City and Vicinity,” stereoview card, 1893 (4) Operation taking place in a Bellevue ward circa 1880s-1890s, gelatin silver copy print, 1948 (5) Operation led by female surgeon, gelatin silver print, circa 1905-1920 (6) Receiving wards, from George Pfaler E.M.D.’s Old Blockley Hospital photo album, Philadelphia, gelatin silver print, 1900-1901 (7) Boston City Hospital Ward P, gelatin silver print, Christmas 1912 Case 4: The Boom of Medical Innovation and Technology (1) Man in bed with leg in an early traction device, tintype in thermoplastic case, circa 1860-1870 (2) “Artificial sunlight for children,” showing a child receiving a “light bath” treatment at New York Nursery and Child’s Hospital, Keystone View Company, Inc., gelatin silver print, circa 1920-1935 (3) “Making ‘movies’ of the heart,” Kymograph machine combining X-ray and moving picture technology built by Dr. Wendell G. Scott and Dr. Sherwood Moore of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, International News Photo, gelatin silver print, 1936 (4) “New electron microscope has great range,” Dr. Gordon Scott of Washington University Medical School using an electron microscope, Acme Chicago Bureau, gelatin silver print, 1940 (5) “Machine will act as heart or lung,” created by J. Jongbloed of Holland for use during surgery, shown at conference of surgeons at the Sorbonne, Paris International News Photos, gelatin silver print, 1951 (6) “Skin resistance to sun measured,” Dr. Robert C. Burt of Pasadena, CA demonstrating his device for measuring how long one may be exposed to sunlight without injury, gelatin silver print, circa 1920-1930 (7) “La formule ideale de sang artificiel” (the ideal formula for artificial blood), Dr. Gottendenker of Vienna with his new invention: artificial human blood, Agence Trampus, gelatin silver print, 1937 (8) The “Headshrinker” positron detector invented by James S. Robertson at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a direct forerunner of positron emission tomography scanning, photographer unknown, gelatin silver print, 1961 (9) “Une nouvelle methode de traitement pour le cancere” (a new way to treat cancer), radiation sphere invented by Anton Zeeman and Doctor Erwin Fuhrer for the treatment of cancer, Agence Trampus, gelatin silver print, 1938 Case 5: Diseases, Vaccines, and Treatments (1) Child with smallpox, New York City, gelatin silver print, 1881 (2) Scenes from pneumonic plague in China, gelatin silver prints, 1911. Pictured are four doctors with thick face masks standing in front of a train; a doctor being sprayed with disinfectant; a doctor and medical assistants with horse-drawn carts for living and dead plague victims; and a doctor and military personnel standing outside an infected building that’s being burned down to stop the spread of disease. (3) Hookworm Disease Commission in Jamaica, gelatin silver prints, circa 1918 In these images from a larger album, medical personnel are using microscopes to examine samples and encouraging local people to see the hookworm eggs under the microscope as part of a health demonstration. (4) Elizabeth Kenny demonstrating physical therapy treatment on a young polio patient for nurses at General Hospital, Minneapolis, gelatin silver print, circa 1940 (5) Female scientists preparing vaccines in the Pasteur Institute toxins and antitoxins department, Photograph Trampus, Paris, gelatin silver print, 1943 (6) Adding formalin to transform toxin into antitoxin at the Pasteur Institute, Photograph Trampus, Paris, gelatin silver print, 1943 (7) U.S. Army Captain Daniel Staples administering typhoid vaccine to a young refugee from a flood area, Forrest City, Arkansas, International Newsreel, gelatin silver print, 1927 (8) Man being vaccinated at Pasteur Institute, photo postcard published by Neurdein et Cie, Paris, 1916 (9) Catholic missionary staff administering vaccines, photo postcard published by La Propagation de la Foi, Paris/Lyon, circa 1920 Case 6: War and Medicine (1) Civil War contract surgeon in his tent with books, medications, and medical bag, tintype, circa 1862-1865 (2) Surgical scene in front of a tent at Camp Letterman, Gettysburg, partial stereoview card, July 1863. Gift of Stanley B. Burns, MD, 2022 (3) American Women’s Hospital ambulance driver with her vehicle, photographer E. Belval, France, gelatin silver print, circa 1918 (4) World War I military doctor treating soldier with leg wound in multi-patient clinic, gelatin silver print, circa 1914-1918 (5) Back view of World War I soldier with severe chest injury recovering at Walter Reed Hospital, gelatin silver print, circa 1917-1920 (6) Wounded soldiers posing after recovery with wax models of their facial wounds from Kriegszahnklinik der IV. Armee in Lublin, a German army maxillofacial surgery album, 1916 (7) French World War I veteran photographed with his leg prosthesis from Considérations sur la Rééducation Professionelle Dans les Industries du Bâtiment (Considerations on vocational retraining in the construction industries), one of the first state-funded veteran rehabilitation programs, Charles Vallee, MD, France, 1917 (8) World War II medics administering plasma to battle casualty “on the run” to an L-5 plane for evacuation, Mindanao, Philippines, U.S. Army photograph, gelatin silver print, circa 1941-1942 (9) American Army surgeon operating on wounded soldier in underground surgery, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, U.S. Army photograph, gelatin silver print, 1943 Case 7: Patient Photography and Diagnostics (1) Civil war veteran receiving morphine injection from a physician, photographer B. Perry, Chamberlain, South Dakota, cabinet card, circa 1865-1866 (2) Nurse taking the pulse of female patient in a wheelchair, photographed by Altman and Edelman, Battle Creek, Michigan, cabinet card, circa 1894-1895 (3) Portrait of an obese man with edema of leg, tintype, circa 1865-1875 (4) Portrait of man with facial and neck tumor, photographer J. G. Ellinwood, Manchester, New Hampshire, carte de visite, circa 1871-1910 (5) Photograph documenting the spinal alignment of a young woman from Berkeley Gymnasium log book on student posture, photographer M. K. Wallin, MD, gelatin silver print, circa 1904-1909 (6) “Tubercular sylphide (on a woman’s back). From the collection of photographs of skin diseases of Dr. George Henry Fox,” page from The Medical Record: Weekly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, December 31, 1887 (7) Man with carcinoma of neck before and after treatment and with his family, Allentown, Pennsylvania, gelatin silver prints attached with surgical tape, circa 1915 (8) Lantern slides of a woman with fractured arm: x-rays and with her arm splinted, circa 1920-1930 (9) “Dr. Bordiu, marquis of Villa Verde, studies X rays during operation performed on Spanish child born with heart ailment,” photographer Jose Maria Lara, Pix Incorporated, New York City, gelatin silver print, circa 1950-1969 (10) Microscopic photography by Carlos Finlay, MD, from his research on yellow fever in Havana, Cuba: “Yellow fever blood, first day, fatal case x1450” and “Yellow fever blood, 5th day, fatal case x1450,” cabinet cards, 1879 Case 8: Teaching Medicine -Cartes de visite documenting Civil War veterans’ wounds and recovery, compiled by Dr. Reed Bontecou, Surgeon-in-Charge of Harewood U.S. Army General Hospital, Washington DC, circa 1863-1864, and donated to Army Medical Museum. Gift of Stanley B. Burns, MD, 2022. AND -Annotated teaching prints of injured Civil War soldiers: James Middleton with gunshot wound through the left shoulder and unidentified soldier with wound on left thigh, Dr. Reed Bontecou, enlargements of albumin prints, circa 1864-1865. Gift of Stanley B. Burns, MD, 2020. -Stereo prints from Lernt helfen (Learn to help), a 3D first aid guide for lay helpers that was packaged with a small folding stereoscope viewer, Germany, 1952 -Lantern slides created by Dr. Cutler using pre-made mats from William Garrison Reed, Boston, circa 1890             - On view are slides on “Purpurra haemorrhagica on leg” and “Herpes zoster on eye.” -To be replaced mid-February with slides on “Purpura rheumatica” and “Tinea Versicolor.” -“Tying the artery after the anastomosis is made” stereoview photograph from Transfusion of Blood by G. W. Crile, from Howard Kelly’s Stereo-clinic series, 1913 AND -“Closing the wound. Drainage.” stereoview photograph from Thyroidectomy for Exophthalmic Goiter by A. H. Ferguson, from Howard Kelly’s Stereo-clinic series, 1911. With stereoscope, circa 1890-1915   Opening Tour and Special Program: Thursday, February 9th 4:15pm – 4:45pm - Meet the curators and Dr. Burns and explore The Medical Lens through a short opening tour. Light refreshments will be served.  Cushing Rotunda, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library 5pm – 6pm - “Medical Photography and the Humanities: Connecting History to Practice,” a session with Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS and Chitra Ramalingam, PhD. Co-sponsored by The Program for Humanities in Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. Room 115, just off the Cushing Rotunda, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. The recording of the session is now available online through The Program for Humanities in Medicine website. Stay tuned for additional tour announcements for this limited time exhibition!

Written by Abigail Roth  Originally posted on the Yale School of Medicine website Heidi, the Yale Police Department’s (YPD) yellow Labrador Retriever service dog and community engagement ambassador, was a frequent—much appreciated—visitor to the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) campus during the fall semester, especially outside the anatomy lab. Heidi greeted first-year medical students, and many stopped to play with her. Providing comfort after anatomy lab Sundari Birdsall, MSW, MPH, RYT500, wellness counselor from the medical school's Student Mental Health & Wellness (SMH&W) Program, came up with the idea for Heidi’s post-anatomy visits. Birdsall then reached out to YPD Officer Rich Simons, Heidi’s “partner,” to coordinate. In explaining the thinking behind her idea, Birdsall says she thought “students could benefit from touching something warm and alive after being in the anatomy lab.” Additionally, she and Lisa Ho, LCSW, YSM’s student mental health & wellness program manager, often brainstorm about “creative ways to support students who wouldn't necessarily seek out therapy or wellness sessions.” Yale School of Medicine and Yale Mental Health and Counseling (MHC) launched the SMH&W Program in October 2021, to provide YSM students more immediate access to mental health counseling. The program provides access to one-on-one counseling, group counseling, and student wellness activities. In addition to Birdsall and Ho, a third member, Kathlene Tracy, PhD, has joined the team and will be available to meet students starting this month. Heidi’s post-anatomy visits, Birdsall says, have been effective. As students are petting Heidi, always with hands washed before leaving anatomy, many make informal, reflective comments about their anatomy lab experience, often related to the five senses. For example, they might mention the contrast of Heidi’s warm body to the cold bodies in the anatomy lab, or Heidi’s sense of smell picking up the lingering scents from the lab. Many students simply express relief to see and get to play with Heidi after what can be an emotional experience, with statements such as, “You knew I needed this today." Additionally, the engagement has led several students to pull Birdsall aside and informally debrief, or ask questions about their lab experience. Because Heidi's visits have been effective, Birdsall plans to expand the initiative in the spring to include anatomy lab visits for both medical students and Physician Associate Program students. Helping to promote wellness services Another outreach strategy Birdsall has initiated, in collaboration with Simons and Melanie Norton, MLIS, head of access and delivery services in the Cushing Whitney Medical Library (CWML), relates to the library. Birdsall explains she had been spending lunchtime on Fridays in the library, since the start of the academic year, to promote the SMH&W Program’s services. “Our wellness programming is robust and open to student interests and ideas,” Birdsall says, adding that frequently changing wellness events are posted on a calendar. To make sure students are of aware of these opportunities, “I'd sit for an hour by the circulation desk or outside the library at the time students were leaving class, offering hot cups of tea and info on our program.” Norton told Birdsall that pre-COVID, the library had had its own therapy dog that students loved, and suggested Birdsall might want to bring a similar dog to the library. Thinking it was a terrific idea, Birdsall reached out to Simons to arrange regular Friday visits. Birdsall appreciates the time Simons and Heidi devote to YSM. “Despite Heidi’s busy calendar, Rich has done a wonderful job of prioritizing the medical school,” she says. Birdsall explains that she books Heidi a month in advance using the LiveSafe app, “and we have been flexible about cancellations during times when Heidi has been needed somewhere else on short notice.” Simons, who refers to Heidi as his “wonderful best friend,” explains that “Heidi’s mission is to make friends and place smiles on everyone’s faces.” Birdsall also expresses gratitude for Norton’s support of the CWML outreach initiative—which includes bringing in candy for students and even giving up her chair and desk for Birdsall. Norton says that the CWML staff enjoy having Birdsall, Simons, and Heidi visit weekly, adding, “There is nothing like the unconditional love of a dog.” Reflecting on Heidi, Birdsall shares, “I've felt Heidi's empathic compassion first-hand.” Simons once gave the command, "Heidi, tell me a story," and, Birdsall explains, Heidi “lay down right on my lap and held still while looking up at me. As I petted her in this position, I started to tear up, seemingly out of the blue! Her caring touch was powerful."

Written By Laura Juliano, Processing Archivist The Medical Historical Library is pleased to announce the Gary C. Burget M.D. papers are now open for research. Gary C. Burget, M.D. (1941-2017), was a plastic surgeon specializing in facial and nasal reconstruction, working in both Miami, Florida and Chicago, Illinois for over 40 years of medical practice. Burget attended Yale University as an undergraduate and went on to graduate from Yale School of Medicine in 1967. The processed collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, publications, patient records, illustrations, photographs, slides, and other materials created or acquired by Burget in the course of running his plastic surgery medical practice, teaching, writing, and publishing. The collection, donated by Burget shortly before his death in 2017, provides the opportunity to study historical trends over time regarding surgical techniques and methods in the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. With a large collection of slides, photographs, and patient charts, methods and diagnosis can be analyzed in the aggregate. As researchers identify techniques and procedures in the visual materials, library staff can update the description of the materials, providing greater levels of detail to future users of the collection. While the majority of the collection consists of patient files, there is a series dedicated to the writing and publishing of Burget which includes notes, drafts, illustrations, and correspondence concerning medical procedures, techniques, and expertise throughout his medical career. Of particular note, the illustrations and artwork created for publications and teaching afford insight into the ways in which Burget sought to advance plastic surgery techniques and how he continually pushed the field into the future. Included are two publications by his brother, Dean E. Burget, M.D., from the time when they were both at Yale University. The collection contains patient information that will be restricted for 50 years past the end date of the collection. Unrestricted materials in the collection include Burget’s writings and publishing files, personal papers, travels abroad for international volunteerism and teaching, and art and illustrations. A list of materials in the Gary C. Burget M.D. papers may be viewed in Archives at Yale.   The Burget papers are a welcome addition to the Yale Archives of Plastic Surgery, which includes the M. Felix Freshwater papers. The Historical Library gratefully acknowledges a generous gift supporting processing of the collection from Dean E. Burget, M.D. and Gabriella M. Burget, honoring the memory of Gary Burget. At 267 linear feet, with 259 boxes of patient files, personal papers, photographs, slides, and artwork, the Burget collection offers insight into the world of plastic surgery that will provide research value for many years to come.

Post by curator Renata Nagy, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art and Renaissance Studies, Yale University Explore our newest online exhibition: “Natural Interactions in the Book as Art and Making Knowledge” When readers call up early printed books in libraries, they expect to see clean copies. It is a fair belief, for most rare library collections include books with the least signs of wear, which were often cherished by collectors. In addition, a lot of used books either perished over the centuries or remained in private collections. This falsely gives the impression that books were barely used in the past. Books were widely engaged with in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This was especially true for books about nature. Readers at the time interacted with their books and created art in them in an attempt to better understand nature and produce knowledge about it.  In Spring 2022, art history Ph.D. candidate and GSAS Professional Experience (GPE) fellow Renata Nagy conducted extensive research into the Library’s holdings. She uncovered books that readers engaged with in relation to their studies about nature. Rich and diverse, the Library’s collection allows for a better understanding of how people thought about natural specimens in the early modern period. Renata curated and authored the exhibition with the generous help of the Library’s colleagues, particularly the John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History and Head of the Library, Melissa Grafe. Featuring over seventy images from fifteen different books from the Medical Historical Library’s collection, the exhibition showcases how elite collectors, interested laymen, artists, and naturalists shaped the book as an active work of art and a site of knowledge production about nature via various reading and learning practices. Illustrations of richly colored flowers, book collections of pasted dried plants, translations of wobbly annotations about the rose root plant, and videos of unfolding the oversized microscopic flea in Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665) demonstrate the variety of ways in which users processed information and invented new ones about natural specimens. We invite you to explore “Natural Interactions in the Book as Art and Making Knowledge,” which is a safe platform to browse the often fragile pages of these remarkable materials.     

On January 25, 2023, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will update its Data Management and Sharing Policy to further accelerate biomedical research discovery through scientific data sharing. The policy includes two main requirements: submission of a data management and sharing plan agreement to comply with that plan, including sharing and preserving data for the long-term Though the policy builds on the NIH’s initial 2003 policy, one significant change is that the new policy will apply to all funded research, not just projects with large awards. The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library welcomes this new policy and supports its emphasis on translating research results into accessible knowledge on human health. To receive assistance with research data management, specifically help in writing a data management plan, please contact Kaitlin Throgmorton, data librarian for the health sciences, at kaitlin.throgmorton@yale.edu QUICK FACTS: The policy goes into effect for applications received on or after January 25, 2023. Complying with the policy is required for all NIH-funded research, including awards under $500,000.  Data management plans must be submitted with NIH applications. There are also additional components to be included. Researchers are expected to share their data when appropriate. The NIH has launched a new website to support the policy. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Manage Data from the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Scientific Data Sharing from the NIH Research Data Management from Yale Library DMPTool – a free tool for generating data management plans based on funder templates, including the new NIH policy (for writing DMS plans) re3data – a free tool for looking up research data repositories (for sharing data) FAIRsharing – a free tool for looking up data standards, databases, and policies (for writing DMS plans) Gonzales S, Carson MB, Holmes K (2022) Ten simple rules for maximizing the recommendations of the NIH data management and sharing plan. PLOS Computational Biology 18(8): e1010397. Michener WK. (2015). Ten simple rules for creating a good data management plan. PLOS Computational Biology, 11(10): e1004525.

The Medical Historical Library is delighted to announce two new gifts detailing student and patient health care activism starting in the 1960s. Dr. Michael Charney, YSM class of 1972, donated his papers related to student activism in his Yale career. Charney was an editor of the Yale Medical Center Newsletter, a student activism newsletter for Yale School of Medicine produced in the late 60s and early 70s.  Charney also donated materials related to his activism for Ralph Nader and the health rights of workers in New Haven and other places; The Organizer’s Manual, which he was involved in producing as part of a multi-university student strike; and publications from other groups, including the Black Panthers and The Medical Committee for Human Rights. The Charney papers provide insight into healthcare activism at Yale and in other parts of the country, highlighting links between the various student, political, and community activist groups. The Medical Historical Library also received the papers of Lyme disease activist Polly Murray, as a gift from her family. Murray lived in Lyme, CT., and alerted the CT State Department of Health and Yale – particularly doctors Allen Steere and Stephen Malawista—to the outbreak of symptoms that included herself, her family, and other members of the Lyme community. Steere and Malawista investigated beginning in 1975, and by 1977 Lyme arthritis (now Lyme disease) was first identified as a new infection spread by ticks bites.  Murray was a layperson integral to the early investigation, and published an account of her experiences with Lyme disease in her book The Widening Circle: A Lyme Disease Pioneer Tells Her Story (1996). Her papers include correspondence with Malawista and others; the original handwritten list of people in town/symptoms that she showed to Steere in 1975; scrapbooks containing Lyme disease publications including newspaper articles; and other material. This gift complements the Stephen Malawista papers already held in the Medical Historical Library collection. Both gifts are currently unprocessed, so please contact the Medical Historical Library at historical.library@yale.edu for access and further information. Initial records for the Michael L. Charney papers and Polly Luckett Murray papers are in the library catalog and Archives at Yale.

The medical library will be closed July 1 - July 4, 2022. We will reopen on Tuesday, July 5th at 7:30am. As always, the 24/7 room will remain open and accessible via the staircase by the library entrance. 

The Historical Library, in coordination with the Department of Pediatrics, is helping to celebrating 100 years of Pediatrics at Yale through a new physical exhibition in the Medical Library’s Rotunda.  Founded in 1921, Yale Pediatrics has always been on the forefront of research and clinical practice. The exhibition features material on some of the department’s initiatives, including: Dr. Ruth Whittemore and the first pediatric rheumatic fever and cardiac clinic in New England in 1947 Development of Dr. Edith Jackson’s pioneering Rooming-In Program at Grace New-Haven Hospital from 1946 to 1953 Creation of the first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) by Dr. Louis Gluck in 1960 Today, Pediatrics has thirteen subspeciality sections, with 87 residents, 47 clinical fellows, 207 full-time faculty and 73 clinical faculty from the community. The department’s mission can be distilled into three words: heal, innovate, and collaborate. This exhibition was organized by Kaiulani Shulman and Jennifer DeSantis, with assistance from Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, Head of the Medical Historical Library, and contributions from various members of the Department of Pediatrics and Medical Library staff (Kelly Perry, Chris Zollo, Melissa Funaro, Dana Haugh, Kaitlin Throgmorton, Melanie Norton, and Terry Dagradi). Some materials displayed are on loan from Manuscripts and Archives, the Medical Historical Library, and Yale New-Haven Hospital archives.  Several labels were adapted from previous exhibitions curated by Toby Appel, Ph.D, and Susan Dee, Archivist, Yale New Haven Hospital. 

   Images from the Bert Hansen Collection of medicine and public health in popular graphic art Like audiences today, 19th-century readers of popular magazines and newspapers learned about public health initiatives and medical discoveries through articles and imagery. The Medical Historical Library team digitized over 500 images from The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art (Ms Coll 67), representing the earliest works in a very large collection that contains materials from 1850-2010. The new digital collection contains 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 cholera, diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, vaccinations, Pasteur’s treatments for rabies, hospitals, mental asylums, unsafe foodstuffs, and public sanitation. There are numerous illustrations using medical imagery in political satire.  These diseases and topics continue to resonate with audiences today, particularly in the COVID-19 era.  Bert Hansen discussed the collection in his recent talk, "Picturing Public Health-Turning Points in Public Health History Conveyed through Prints." The effort to digitize these images and make them freely available worldwide was generously funded by the Arcadia Fund. You can also find other Arcadia-funded digitized texts, including incunables, medieval and Renaissance medical and scientific manuscripts, Yale Medical School theses and early Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts, through our digitized collections page or through Cushing/Whitney Medical Library site on Internet Archive, as part of the Medical Heritage Library.

Innovation & Evolution in Hip Replacement Surgery: Highlights from the Keggi–Rubin Hip Implant Collection at Yale University  On view in the Cushing Rotunda, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library January 28th - April 29th, 2022      This exhibit explores the evolution of hip replacement surgery through historic implants selected from the new Keggi—Rubin Hip Implant Collection at Yale University. The displayed implants trace the trials, innovations, successes, and failures of hip replacement surgery over time, providing insight into the dynamic world of surgical history. By archiving and studying these implants, one can witness the remarkable changes that have resulted from design, engineering, biomaterials, manufacturing, and technological advances over nearly a century. The evolution of total hip replacement has been possible thanks to the timeless contributions and collaborations of many dedicated surgeons, researchers, engineers, industry experts, and manufacturers over the past 70 years. This exhibition was organized by Marguerite “Maggie” Gilmore, College of the Holy Cross; Daniel H. Wiznia, MD, Assistant Professor; Kristaps J. Keggi, MD, Professor Emeritus; and Lee E. Rubin, MD, Associate Professor, with the assistance of Melissa Grafe, Ph.D.  Multiple donors contributed materials to the collection.  An online exhibition is available to explore, containing additional content from the collection.

   The Medical Historical Library is pleased to announce a new gift of patient records from Boston’s Waltham Hospital (which closed in 2003) dating from 1889 to 1897. Within 7 bound volumes are what are now called progress notes, operative reports, pathology reports, and medication records written by attending physicians. The volumes provide a snapshot of patient care, disease, and medicine in late 19th century Massachusetts. The collection is a generous gift of Alan M. Engler, M.D.; Yale College, Class of 1976.  The Waltham Hospital medical records (Ms Coll 82) are now available for researchers to view in the Medical Historical Library. Included in the volumes are notes documenting surgery in 1894 for a perforated appendix, in which Dr. Alfred Worcester operated and saved a patient’s life – under ether, and 50 years before antibiotics became widely available. Worcester was the founder of the Waltham Hospital and was known for advocating for early surgical intervention in the treatment of appendicitis and for the use of Caesarean section in difficult births. In the 1880s, appendicitis was treated by waiting for an abscess to form and was often fatal. Worcester found that he could usually operate before the appendix had ruptured by entering the peritoneum (the membrane lining the cavity of the abdomen) and greatly reduce morbidity and mortality. The reports of his cases and the controversy between him and the surgeons of Boston demonstrate the evolution of medical and surgical practice. The volumes also document trauma (gunshot wounds, people kicked by horses, occupational injuries), cancer, birth injuries, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and suicide attempts.

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is delighted to welcome three new staff members to our team: Megan Nance, Kaitlin Throgmorton, and Laura Juliano. Megan Nance joined the Access and Delivery Services team as the Evening/Weekend Access Services Librarian. Previously, Megan was at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida where she was Acting Head of Access Services and Archives.   Kaitlin Throgmorton joined the Technology and Innovation team as the Data Librarian for the Health Sciences. Kaitlin came to us from Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit health research organization, where she was the Bioinformatics Analyst and Data Curator.   Laura Juliano joined the Medical Historical Library team as a Term Archivist. Laura will be processing the Gary Burget papers, a large collection of plastic surgery records and materials. Laura most recently interned at the American Civil Liberties Union, and previously worked as a Collections Assistant at the Brooklyn Historical Society.  

The Medical Historical Library announces that the Wilfrid Rall computational neuroscience research collection (Ms Coll 83) is now open for researchers. The collection is a gift of Gordon Shepherd, MD, DPhil, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Neuroscience at Yale, and the family of Wilfrid Rall. Rall (1922-2018) was a neuroscientist whose work focused on the electrical properties of neurons and the functions of neuronal dendrites. His development of cable theory and the compartmental modeling approach for studying dendrites and synaptic integration helped found the discipline of computational neuroscience. The collection documents his research from 1963-1971, particularly his collaborative work with Gordon Shepherd using the compartmental modeling method to study the functional organization of the olfactory bulb. Research notebooks, correspondence, and reprints of Rall’s publications are included in the archive. Rall’s research notebooks are fully digitized and freely available online. The 11 notebooks, dating from 1963-1971, document his research on dendritic function. Shepherd writes, “Rall used to record the day’s computer runs, calculations and discussions, hypotheses, summaries of progress, and plans for the future. The volumes are a running record of his busy life as one of the first neuroscience biophysicists, and his conscientious efforts to keep up with the many projects and thoughts stimulated by his work. They provide unique insights into how Rall in his earliest work brought together several disciplines in creating the computational approach to analyzing the functional organization of neurons and neuronal microcircuits as the basis for the future field of computational neuroscience.”  

Melanie Norton, Head of Access and Delivery Services, was recognized for her outstanding leadership of the DiversAbility at Yale (DAY) affinity group. Throughout her career Melanie has been passionate and responsive to the needs of individuals impacted by disability, and in particular with the challenges students with disabilities encounter when trying to use public spaces and academic libraries. As the co-chair of the DAY from 2019 to 2021, Melanie championed the causes of faculty, staff, and students with disabilities (either visible or invisible) so as to improve their sense of belonging at Yale.  DAY's mission is to create a personal and professional network for all Yale employees impacted by disability, identify opportunities to promote recruitment, retention and advancement of people with disabilities, support and collaborate with other Yale affinity groups and efforts to create an inclusive Yale community, and increase awareness of issues related to disability through learning opportunities, social activities, and participation in outreach activities. Deborah Stanley-McAuley, Associate Vice President for Employee Engagement and Workplace Culture, presented Melanie with the award and commended her for her committment to accessibility, disability advocacy, and community building at Yale and beyond.   Kudos from DAY colleagues: "Thank you for your dedication, contributions and outstanding service as affinity group leader in making Yale a better place for different staff constituencies across camps." - Henry Kwan, Director for Shared Interest Groups "Thank you so much for everything you've done to make Yale a better place. Your commitment to the Yale community and our well-being is so very appreciated." - Tracy MacMath, Web Application Developer at Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library "Thank you for your leadership of DAY during an extraordinarily challenging time; I'm so grateful for everything you did to maintain and strengthen community during your term as co-chair!" - Julie Linden, Director of Collection Development Scholarly Resources

Welcome to Open Access Week 2021!  Visit this page for daily updates with short activities you can complete to learn more about open access publishing and show you support for greater transparency in the scholarly publishing industry.  From SPARC, “Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.”  Open access allows researchers around the world to access scholarship with no waiting periods or embargos, allowing research results to be disseminated and built upon more quickly.  Did you know that the Yale Library supports open access publishing?  We fund a number of membership programs that reduce or eliminate article processing charges (APCs) associated with open access articles for Yale authors.  Our membership with PLOS waives all APCs in all PLOS journals for any article with a Yale corresponding author.  Find more information about library support for open access here.  Take our Open Access Week 2021 Quiz for an opportunity to win a prize up to $25 in value from the Yale bookstore!

Interested in learning more about what the medical library can do for you? Whether it’s setting up citation alerts for your papers or accessing journals off campus, we’re here to help! Stop by the medical library entrance on September 15 from 9:00am – 11:00am to find out more.

The medical library will be closed on Monday, September 6 for Labor Day. As always, the 24/7 room will be open for Yale and YNHH ID holders. To access the 24/7 room when the medical library is closed, use the stairwell to the left of the medical library entrance, go down one set of stairs, and turn right into the corridor. The 24/7 room door is located down the hall on the right side. Please note: there is no elevator access to and from this room when the medical library is closed.

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is delighted to welcome two new staff members to our team.  On the Academic and Research Education team we welcomed Kayla Del Biondo and Sofia Fertuzinhos. Kayla Del Biondo joins us as the Simbonis Librarian for Public Health. Kayla will work with Kate Nyhan in providing support to the YSPH community, particularly students, as well as assist Lindsay Barnett with scholarly communication projects and topics, such as open access, copyright, and processing YSPH and other student theses.      Sofia Fertuzinhos joins our Bioinformatics Support Hub as the Research and Education Librarian for Bioinformatics. Sofia received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yale and the University of Coimbra in Portugal as part of a prestigious joint program. Sofia has worked in neuroscience labs at Yale since 2010, first as a postdoctoral associate, postdoctoral fellow, and associate research scientist.     

  As of this month, the library is officially supporting EndNote 20! Classes will be taught in 20 and we encourage you to upgrade to best follow along and take advantage of the software’s new functionalities. What’s the difference between X9 and 20? Some of the the biggest differences between the versions are visual: new icons, reorganized menus, and more space between references for easier reading. Notable changes include the Word icons from X9 now living as menu options under Tools and the integrated library view (local, shared, and online) being the default. If the new font size is too big for your screen, you can modify it by heading to Preferences -> Display Font.    Various processes are now more intuitive, such as modifying references and copying formatted citations. There is an explicit Edit button in the right-side reference pane that also facilitates text formatting that was previously complicated (like making text superscript or bold). The Copy Formatted menu option still exists under Reference but there is now a button next to the preview of the formatted reference as well. On the technical side, 20 enables deduplication by DOI and PMCID as well as further integrates Web of Science citation report functions. Things to think about prior to upgrading:  ·      Make sure your computer is compatible. For PCs, EndNote 20 requires at least Windows 10 and Microsoft Word 2010. For Mac users, you’ll need at least OS 10.14 and Microsoft Word 2016. ·      Back up your library. While EndNote libraries are supposed to be forwards-compatible, it’s best to save a compressed version of your EndNote library before upgrading just in case. Head to File, then Compressed Library (.enlx) and modify the file name to include the date of the backup. Email this file to yourself. ·      Consider your collaborators and how you share. While libraries are forwards-compatible, they are no longer backwards compatible beyond X9.3. This means if you have 20 and your colleague has X8, they won’t be able to use the library you send them. When you decide to upgrade, EndNote 20 is available through the  ITS Software Library. If you’re on a managed machine, contact ITS to install the software. Check our calendar for upcoming workshops as well as the vendor’s EndNote 20 YouTube series.

The medical library resumed full operating hours on Sunday, August 1, 2021. After a year of operating with reduced building hours, we are excited to welcome Yale and YNHH ID holders back to the library during the following hours of service: Monday - Thursday: 7:30am - Midnight Friday: 7:30am - 10:00pm Saturday: 10:00am - 10:00pm Sunday: 10:00am - Midnight For upcoming exceptions and holiday closings, see our Hours page.  Additionally, The Cushing Center reopened to Yale and YNHH ID holders on August 1. Though guided tours are not available yet, we welcome you to explore the space on your own. Please visit this page for visiting hours and other guidance. Per Yale policy (updated 7/30/21), all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, are required to wear masks indoors while on campus

Recently we launched a new webpage that brings together medical-focused resources relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The page is located under the "Collections" tab and includes topics such as Race and Racism in Health Care, Disability Studies at Yale, LGBTQI+ Health, and the Women's Leadership Resource Library. Many of these resources are curated by medical librarians in partnership with various departments in the Yale medical center.  Visit the page If you have questions or ideas for other topics, please reach out to dana.haugh@yale.edu.

Yale Library has a new app that allows you to checkout materials right from your mobile device! Simply download the app onto your Android or iOS device, sign in with your NetID and password, and start scanning. Download the app: Android  •  iOS The app is available for current Yale students, faculty and staff and can only be used while on campus. How it Works Download the free "Yale Library Self-Checkout" app from your app store. 1. Open the app and click "Start." 2. Sign in with your netID and password. 3. Click on the "plus" sign in the top left corner to check out materials. 4. Use your phone's camera to check out materials by holding it over the book barcode. 5. You will see a list of items that have been successfully checked to you. Click "Finish" to complete your transaction.   6. Once you click "Finish" you will see this confirmation and a note that your receipt will be emailed to you. Receipts come from "receipts@meescan.com" If you have any questions, please reach out to AskYaleMedicalLibrary@yale.edu.

In support of women leaders at the Yale School of Medicine, Prasanna Ananth, MD, MPH, a member of the School of Medicine Committee on the Status of Women (SWIM), has been collaborating with Melissa Funaro, Clinical Research & Education Librarian from the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, on the Women’s Leadership Resource Library. The electronic library is designed to help women in medicine elevate their leadership skills, through curated content on teamwork, mentoring, negotiation, time management, and more. We hope you find this useful in your growth as a leader and innovator in medicine.   Please check out the Women’s Leadership Resource Library: https://guides.library.yale.edu/SWIM-resource-library

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is pleased to announce that volumes from our manuscript collection, focused on medical education, are now available online! The effort to digitize these volumes and make them freely available worldwide was generously funded by the Arcadia Fund. The Historical Library holds a collection of volumes handwritten between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries documenting medical education in multiple ways. Student notes of medical lectures show transmission of knowledge by notable medical men such as William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and man-midwife to Queen Charlotte and William Cullen (1710-1790), one of the leading medical faculty members at the University of Edinburgh. Notebooks describing patient cases, diaries documenting travels to different medical schools or popular medical literature at that time, or even student projects such as a herbarium that described uses of plants, represent different manners of medical learning. For women like Eliza Heath, recipe (or commonplace) books contained medical “cures” from all kinds of written and oral sources in order to battle a wide variety of household ailments. Some of the earliest Medical Institution of Yale College (now Yale School of Medicine) student notebooks, containing the lectures from the founders and early faculty of our medical school, are freely available online as well. Dr. Nathan Smith, the first Chair of Surgery, lectured on the theory and practice of “physic” and surgery, captured in Richard Warner’s notes in 1818-1819, and in this anonymously written notebook for 1819-1820. Please explore these volumes on the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library site on Internet Archive, as part of the Medical Heritage Library. By early April, nearly 70 volumes will be available for online viewing and download. You can also find other Arcadia-funded digitized texts, including incunables, medieval and Renaissance medical and scientific manuscripts, Yale Medical School theses and early Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts, in this collection. Also, dive into another collection complementing our medical education materials, For the Health of the New Nation: Philadelphia as the Center of American Medical Education, 1746-1868, which provides free online access to 140,000 pages of lecture tickets, course schedules, theses, dissertations, student notes, faculty lectures notes, commencement addresses, opening addresses, and matriculation records.  

The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 Research Advancement in Health Sciences Librarianship Award from the Medical Library Association. This award recognizes organizations “whose exemplary actions have served to advance health information research and evidence-based practice in health sciences libraries… and have created and sustained a culture of research that… has contributed significantly to clinical, educational, research, or administrative outcomes in their institutions.” Located in the heart of the Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital medical campus (and on web browsers worldwide), the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is vital in supporting the research, clinical, and educational missions of its community.  “This tremendous achievement recognizes the outstanding work of the medical library staff. The need for their expert, timely research support has never been greater. The medical library is a center of excellence for both the Yale medical community and Yale University Library.” – Barbara Rockenbach, Stephen F. Gates ‘68 University Librarian, Yale University Library Throughout its history, the medical library has kept pace with tremendous change in the biomedical and health sciences fields, working strategically to influence research and scholarship advancement at the Yale Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health, and the Yale New Haven Hospital. The medical library established one of the earliest library liaison programs in the country, pairing a librarian with every department to provide specialized support. In addition, the “personal librarian” program for health sciences students was an innovation of the medical library’s and established medical librarians as thesis topic consultants, research collaborators, and scholarly communication advisors. Yale’s medical librarians are national leaders and advocates for librarians' role on systematic review research teams and, more recently, as peer reviewers. Yale was the first US library to license Covidence to support enterprise-wide systematic reviews and medical librarians have developed tools to expedite the work of research teams such as the Yale MeSH Analyzer, which has been adopted globally and previously won Yale's Linda Lorimer Award for Distinguished Service.  “Our staff are seen as vital research partners and contributors to the success of the clinical, research, and educational missions of the Medical Center. The impact that the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library has upon the work of the entire Yale New Haven Medical Center is profound.”  – John Gallagher, Director, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library A history of innovative hiring in bioinformatics, data, clinical support, plus a flexible endowed fellowship has pushed the medical library deeper into novel research areas. Unique historical materials allow partnerships with clinicians and faculty to teach and discover through collections, and support for open access and scholarly communication opens daily conversations about research dissemination. Overall, 37 staff members support the research needs of a clinical and educational enterprise of 20,000 employees. Medical librarians partner with research teams to work on evidence-based research and clinical practice changes, bioinformatics analyses, data projects, historical retrospectives, and consult on all aspects of the scholarly communication lifecycle. “Yale’s medical library is undoubtedly one of the best in the world. I am so honored to be affiliated with its leadership and so grateful on behalf of all our trainees and faculty for the amazing resource you have created and nurtured for the health sciences.” – Jessica Illuzzi, MD, MS, FACOG, Deputy Dean for Education and Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine Medical librarians publish research and program assessment papers in the health sciences literature and in the library science literature, present at regional and national conferences, and produce posters about research and innovative services. In the last 10 years alone, publications by medical library staff have exceeded 160 articles, chapters, and monographs, and the volume has tripled every three years. It is also notable that medical library staff, particularly paraprofessional staff, provide technical support services to further research projects at both the university and the hospital. The medical library is a leader in research about library/IT collaboration, liaison librarianship, systematic reviews, collection development, history of medicine, bioinformatics, data support, peer review, resource sharing, innovative roles for staff, and scholarly communication. As such, at Yale’s medical campus, librarians are seen as partners in research across the academic and clinical missions and have made innovative contributions to scholarship, as recognized by this prestigious award. The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Research Medical Library both received this year’s award.

  The Living Textbook of Pragmatic Clinical Trials is a collection of knowledge from the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory. This free web-accessed resource reflects a collection of special considerations and best practices in the design, conduct, and reporting of pragmatic clinical trials and is organized to follow the linear progression of these stages. Within this resource, special attention is nowgiven to the utilization and redistribution of research data by having dedicated sections on:  Assessing fitness for use of real-world data sources (i.e., determining the applicability, quality and provenance of a dataset)  Acquiring real-world data Data sharing and embedded research As of January 2021, the Living Textbook added information on using claims and CMS files. See the announcement and a list of added topics here. Other data types covered include, electronic health records (EHRs), administrative claims, patient-reported outcomes (PROs), patient-generated health data (PGHD), medical product/device registries, condition-specific or disease registries, and environmental factors / social determinants of health.  Learn more about these topics, and additional topics covered by the NIH Collaboratory Living Textbook of Pragmatic Clinical Trials by utilizing this textbook here.  

Yale University Library has entered into 2 unique membership agreements with PLOS, an open access publisher of high quality journals in science and medicine. These 3-year commitments will waive article processing charges (APCs) for Yale-affiliated authors publishing in PLOS journals! This includes all existing PLOS titles: PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS One, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Genetics, and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, as well as any new PLOS publications launched during the contract term.   Last year Yale authors published more than 100 articles in PLOS journals, with APCs of up to $3,000 per article. Effective Jan. 1, 2021, these author-paid APCs will be eliminated and replaced with annual fees paid by the library. The authors will maintain copyright ownership of their research.  Read more Questions? Contact Lindsay Barnett: lindsay.barnett@yale.edu

The Historical Library is pleased to announce a new online exhibition showing items you might never find in our physical exhibits!  https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/materialfragility/page/home “Materiality, Fragility, and Loss in the Medical Archive” was curated by Anabelle Gambert-Jouan, a doctoral candidate in the Department of the History of Art, who was supported by a Graduate Professional Experience Fellowship from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She reflects on the exhibition in this blog post. Overcoming the Fragility of Objects with a Digital Exhibition by Anabelle Gambert-Jouan The idea for the exhibition “Materiality, Fragility, and Loss in the Medical Archive” emerged in a moment of widespread closure of museums and collections. What could be done to showcase the Medical Historical Library’s holdings when access to the display cases beneath the Cushing rotunda was restricted? Instead of a limitation, the switch to an entirely online exhibition became an opportunity to highlight photographs, books, and other medical artifacts that are either rarely seen by the public due to their fragile state or cannot be appreciated fully in traditional display cases because they have mechanistic components or hidden parts requiring tactile engagement. As curatorial fellow at the Medical Historical Library, I had the opportunity to explore the collection in-person, including the recently acquired Stanley B. Burns M.D. Historic Medical Photography Collection, to select the works that best expressed the exhibition’s themes. I wanted to illustrate, through the digital medium, that a daguerreotype needed to be held in a certain way for the image to become visible for an instant. I wanted to convey the strange sensation of peeling back the layers of the paper organs depicted in G. J. Witkowski’s Anatomie iconoclastique. To do this, I used photographs and videos created especially by the staff of the Medical Historical Library. The exhibition examines these fascinating historical objects, with an emphasis on the senses of sight and touch. The exhibition also catches the “behind-the-scenes” moments of the collection. Recent and ongoing work by conservators and scientists is highlighted in the final section of the exhibition, to explain how specialists are seeing through the damage and the material decay to learn more about objects. 

Research and Education Librarian for Bioinformatics Are you a recent science graduate interested in librarianship? Join our Bioinformatics Support team! Required Qualifications: Master’s degree from an ALA‐accredited library school OR a post‐graduate degree in a biomedical science related discipline may be required or substituted for a master’s degree in library science. Demonstrated knowledge of the basic principles, theories, practices, techniques, and terminology of a biomedical-related discipline and an understanding of the standard methods, procedures, and techniques of research and analysis in that field. Excellent analytical, customer service, and interpersonal skills. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Ability to work both independently and collegially in a demanding and rapidly changing environment. Preferred Qualifications: Experience with analysis of omics data using a programing language Experience working in an academic health sciences library Ability to perform independent analyses and report findings to biomedical researchers Publication(s) in relevant peer-reviewed journals Schedule: Full-time (37.5 hours/week); standard work week (M-F, 8:30 – 5:00) Start date: February 1, 2021 Rank: Librarian I APPLY HERE Yale University offers an exciting opportunity for achievement and growth in New Haven, Connecticut. Conveniently located between Boston and New York, New Haven is the creative capital of Connecticut with cultural resources that include major art museums, theaters and music. New Haven is also a biotech and research hub and the location of one of the largest hospitals in the United States. The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library serves the Yale Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, and the Yale-New Haven Hospital as well as Yale College and the Yale Graduate School. The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is a dynamic and busy place; library staff work together as a team to provide responsive and effective information support to the Medical Center's missions of research, education, and patient care. In addition, digitized collections, clinical synthesis tools, evidence-based practice resources, and a suite of bioinformatics tools bring information to our community at the library, on campus and remotely. For additional information, see: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/. Position Description/Focus The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Bioinformatics Support Program is considered among the most comprehensive medical library bioinformatics programs in the US. It provides support throughout the Next-Generation Sequencing data (genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics) lifecycle from raw data (e.g. FASTQ files) to the functional analysis of differentially-regulated molecules. It also supports the functional analysis of proteomics, post-translational modifications, and metabolomics datasets.  The Program not only provides access to the state-of-the-art bioinformatics software (e.g. Partek Flow, Qlucore Omics Explorer, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis, MetaCore, Transfac) but also provides training and consultations on how to use these tools. Training sessions on how to use open source software (e.g. Cytoscape) and command line/ scripting (e.g. R, Python) for the analysis and visualization of biomedical datasets are also regularly offered. The  Research and Education Librarian for Bioinformatics is a member of the Academic Research and Education team and reports to the Head of Academic Research and Education. As a member of the library’s established Bioinformatics Support Program, the Research and Education Librarian for Bioinformatics serves as a liaison between the library and basic and clinical research departments, laboratories, and individual researchers and is pivotal to maintaining and growing excellent bioinformatics support services. The librarian will interact with faculty, staff, researchers, and students in the Yale Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health as well as researchers, graduate students and post-docs in an array of academic and clinical programs across the Medical Center and Yale's West Campus. The librarian will also interact and collaborate with other University centers and units including the Yale Center for Genomic Analysis and Yale Center for Research Computing. The library also supports Yale New Haven Hospital, and the Research and Education Librarian for Bioinformatics will interact with clinicians, staff, and researchers from the hospital. The librarian will also collaborate with colleagues from throughout the Yale University Library system. Position Responsibilities This position will contribute to the success of the Bioinformatics Support Program by responding to the increased need and demand for bioinformatics support across the medical campus. Specifically: Provides reference and in-depth research, information and bioinformatics  consultation services to biomedical researchers through one-on-one and group consultations (in person or online) on a wide variety of bioinformatics topics throughout the research life cycle. Teaches Yale biomedical researchers, students, and staff to use a range of free and commercial (licensed by the library) bioinformatics databases and software for retrieving, downloading, analyzing, and visualizing a wide variety of molecular data including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.  Creates and develops instruction modules and coordinates presentations from outside vendors and guest speakers for the benefit of the Yale biomedical community. Communicates regularly with researchers to develop a deep understanding of their current research interests, projects, and bioinformatics and data needs. Offers services to help researchers identify and meet requirements of grants (proposals and reporting), publications (research and publisher requirements), and any applicable public access policies associated with federally funded research. Creates and maintains online guides and other research support tools. Collaborates with the Data Librarian for Health Sciences to develop and teach instruction sessions on command-line coding. Collaborates with fellow medical librarians and librarians across campus, bioinformaticians, statisticians, and other departments that support e-science. Works closely with the Collection Development and Scholarly Communication Librarian and other library staff to select, evaluate and promote bioinformatics and data resources in all formats (print, databases, datasets, images, etc.) related to biomedical research and science. Participates in assessing the efficacy/relevance of the Bioinformatics Support program by collecting, analyzing, and reporting statistics which document the service levels and trends in service provision. Helps the library gain insights into new potential uses and users of the bioinformatics resources, and information-seeking behaviors of scientists. Demonstrates professional development and service through publication and/or active membership in professional organizations. May be required to assist in disaster recovery efforts. May perform other duties as assigned.   Background Check Requirements All external candidates for employment will be subject to pre-employment background screening for this position, which may include motor vehicle and credit checks based on the position description and job requirements. Internal candidates may be subject to a motor vehicle or credit check for this position based on the position description and job requirements. All offers are contingent on successful completion of the required background check. Yale University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Yale values diversity in its faculty, staff, and students and strongly encourages applications from women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

We look forward to resuming our Bioinformatics Support Office Hours on 7th January, 2021. Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

To celebrate the holiday season, we asked our staff to send in their best holiday pet photos! Please enjoy this collection of furry friends in their holiday best. WINNER: "Best Christmas Fren"  Name: Ashley  Breed: Border Collie/Cho mix  Age: 10 yrs  Best gift: Stuffed animals  Human: Terry Dagradi WINNER: "Best Sweater"  Name: Ben  Breed: Handsome  Age: 9 yrs  Best gift: Catnip-filled fishy  Human: Dana Haugh WINNER: "Best Patient Dog Look"  Name: Buster "Bud Spud" Norton  Breed: Mutt  Age: 6 yrs  Best gift: Dental sticks  Human: Melanie Norton WINNER: "Best Underbite"  Name: Charlie  Breed: Shih tzu/Lhasa apso mix  Age: 11 yrs  Best gift: All the greenies  Human: Lindsay Barnett WINNER: "Best Sugarplum Fairy"  Name: Charlotte  Breed: Pembroke Welsh Corgi  Age: 13 yrs  Best gift: Smelly fish treats  Human: Judy Spak WINNER: "Best Fluff"  Name: Hamilton  Breed: Blue Russian mix  Age: 3 yrs  Best gift: Cat treats  Human: Dorota Peglow WINNER: "Best Action Shot"  Name: Jinx  Breed: Mixed  Age: 13 yrs  Best gift: A can of dog food  Human: Lindsay Barnett WINNER: "Best Santa Hat"  Name: Kilar  Breed: Orange Tabby  Age: 13 yrs  Best gift: Cat treats  Human: Dorota Peglow WINNER: "Best Serious Pupper Face"  Name: Lulu  Breed: Rescue  Age: 7 yrs  Best gift: A box of any kind  Human: Laura Miller WINNER: "Best Yeti Impression"  Name: Molly  Breed: Magical mystery rescue  Age: 10 yrs  Best gift: A hedgehog or lambchop toy  Human: Caitlin Meyer WINNER: "Best Knitwear"  Name: Pumpkin  Breed: Cat  Age: 5 yrs  Best gift: Mittens to match scarf and hat  Human: Holly Grossetta Nardini  

It's the holiday season and that usually means our staff is busy decorating the library and building our beloved book tree. Stationed in the Historical Library reading room, the book tree comprises anywhere from 450 to over 600 volumes of the National Union Catalogue (last year's tree was particularly rotund). A team of energetic staff volunteers to transport, organize, and arrange the heavy volumes during the day-long process, jumping in and out as schedules (and strength!) permit. It's the perfect way to burn off those extra Thanskgiving calories! While we'll miss building a tree this year, we hope you'll enjoy these time-lapse videos of previous book tree builds. 2016 Book Tree 2017 Book Tree 2018 Book Tree  

Written by Jonathan S. Jones The U.S. Civil War (1861-65) sparked a massive epidemic of opioid addiction among those who fought and survived the bloody conflict. The war mobilized millions of soldiers, hospital workers, and freedom-seekers, bringing people into contact with unfamiliar microbes, insects, and animals. This mass movement of bodies and pathogens resulted in extreme outbreaks of measles, smallpox, typhoid fever, and other deadly, terrifying diseases. Brutal technological innovations like the Minié ball caused ghastly, agonizing wounds, and men who survived often spent the rest of their lives in chronic pain. Military surgeons tasked with patching up wounded soldiers and treating the sick had their jobs cut out for them. Often-times army doctors were simply civilians pressed into service by circumstance, and they fell back on fundamental therapies to mitigate sickness and suffering. Opiates, the most common medicines in antebellum America, thus became defensive weapons in Civil War’s medical arsenal, “important to the surgeon as gunpower to the ordinance,” according to one military medical handbook. Opium pills, morphine injections, and laudanum (a blend of opium and alcohol) were some of the Civil War’s most widely used medicines. Opiates were marvelous painkillers—morphine and synthetic opioids are still standard palliatives today—and the medicines were also surprisingly useful for suppressing symptoms like diarrhea and coughing. Civil War armies could not have functioned without opiates, which surgeons doled out widely during and after the war to ailing soldiers. Opiates are addictive, however, and doctors’ prescriptions all-too-predicably led to addiction for Civil War veterans. Not only was opiate addiction dangerous and unhealthy, resulting in thousands of overdose deaths between the 1860s and the early twentieth century, but the condition was also deeply stigmatized in Civil War America. Most Americans considered addiction to be an unmanly and immoral vice. Addicted veterans deserved punishment, not sympathy, according to contemporary observers. Consequently, addicted veterans faced terrible outcomes, a theme I explore in a recent journal article investigating the experience of opiate addiction for veterans. Naturally, many addicted veterans blamed the doctors who first introduced them to opiates. But how did doctors react to veterans’ blame? Did they reject charges of culpability, or admit that prescriptions lay at the root of Civil War America’s opioid crisis? Did the crisis affect how doctors practiced medicine, and if so, what did any changes mean for the course of American medicine? These are questions I address in my book manuscript, “Opium Slavery: Veterans and Addiction in Civil War America,” which is based on my dissertation (Binghamton University, 2020). In 2020-21, as a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State’s Richards Civil War Center, I am revising my book for publication. My research for this project benefited immensely from a Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Grant awarded by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library in 2018-19. The library’s inimitable collection of nineteenth-century American medical records provided a major component of my evidentiary base, allowing me to investigate how the Civil War veterans’ opiate addiction epidemic refracted into medical practices and thought in the late-nineteenth century U.S. In particular, the Medical Historical Library holds incredibly rare clinical records that provide insights into how the Civil War-era opioid crisis altered the fundamentals of medicine, like prescribing patterns. As I argue in my book, American physicians were deeply troubled by prescription opium and morphine addiction among veterans. Doctors were widely blamed for causing the post-Civil War opiate addiction epidemic by overprescribing opiates, and this blame was dangerous for physicians, who had a perilous position in the extraordinary competitive Gilded Age medical marketplace. The nineteenth-century American medical marketplace was remarkably democratic, and sick people could turn to a bewildering array of medical practitioners for health care. Throughout the Civil War era, physicians struggled to outcompete sectarian practitioners, patent medicine sellers, and so-called “quack” doctors. Something had to be done about prescription drug addiction, many physicians worried, because the problem threatened the profession’s reputation and commercial standing. Consequently, I argue, during the 1870s and 1880s, ex-military surgeons—men like Jacob Mendes Da Costa of Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College—urged their colleagues to prescribe opiates sparingly, thus creating fewer cases of opiate addiction. Not to be overlooked, this shift away from opiate medicines was a radical reversal of nineteenth-century American therapeutic practices, which relied heavily on opiates to treat all manner of ailments. Da Costa was a former Union army surgeon famous in his day for conducting research on cardiac distress among Union army soldiers and veterans. In an influential 1871 medical journal article, Da Costa urged his colleagues to refrain from prescribing opiates to men suffering from chronic pain, warning that there was “great risk of making the patient an opium eater”—a dual risk for patients' health and physicians’ reputations.  I suspected that Da Costa, for his part, practiced what he preached. That’s what brought me to Yale’s Medical Historical Library. Considering his firsthand knowledge of addiction, I wanted to investigate how Da Costa’s prescribing patterns might have differed from his peers in reaction to witnessing addiction among soldiers. After the Civil War, Da Costa set up shop in Philadelphia, where he taught clinical medicine at Jefferson Medical College. At Yale during the spring of 2019, I quantified Da Costa’s patient records from the Jefferson Medical College’s public teaching clinic in Philadelphia. They document the medical histories of thousands of individuals suffering from a wide variety of painful conditions. The records include detailed prescriptions, and a sample of 1,945 cases dating from October 1870 to October 1875 indicate that Da Costa and his trainees prescribed opiates to just 371 patients, or 19%. By comparison, Yale historian John Harley Warner has found that about 42% of prescriptions from a comparable public hospital in Boston during the 1870s contained opiates—more than double the rate of Da Costa’s Philadelphia clinic. In other words, Da Costa and his medical trainees relied much less heavily on addictive opiate medicines than their contemporaries. Considering Da Costa’s vocal warnings about prescription opiate addiction—knowledge he gleaned by observing addicted Civil War soldiers and veterans—the Jefferson Medical Clinic records reveal that the Civil War veterans’ opiate addiction epidemic had important ripple effects on American medical practices. Opiate medicines, long-time staples in the doctor’s black bag, soon declined precipitously in American medicine. As I argue in my book, ex-army doctors like Da Costa, who were alarmed by veterans’ prescription opiate addiction, led the movement away from opiates. The research that led to these surprising findings would have been impossible without a Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Grant from Yale’s Medical Historical Library. By facilitating access to Da Costa’s rare clinical records, the grant played an essential role in my dissertation research and ongoing book project. About Jonathan S. Jones Jonathan S. Jones is the inaugural Postdoctoral Scholar in Civil War History at Penn State’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center in 2020-21, where he is currently preparing a book manuscript on opiate addiction in the Civil War era for publication. The project is derived from his dissertation on the same topic, defended at Binghamton University in June 2020. Jonathan’s recent publications include an article in The Journal of the Civil War Era’s June 2020 issue titled “Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and Opiate Addiction.” After Penn State, Jonathan will be joining the Department of History at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) as an Assistant Professor starting in August 2021. Connect with Jonathan on Twitter at @_jonathansjones or at jonathansjones.net. 

Just for the week of Oct 26th, 2020 the Bioinformatics Support Office Hours will be held on Wednesday, 28th October, 2020 from 2pm to 4pm. Regular Thursday 10am-Noon hours will resume from the following week. Thanks for your cooperation!

While Harvey Cushing was the impetus behind the formation of Yale’s Medical Library, you can find materials on the other founders, John Fulton and Arnold Klebs, within the Historical Library’s main reading room.   John Fulton, the youngest of the three founders of the Historical Library, trained in medicine and physiology at Harvard and Oxford, and came to Yale in 1930 as professor of physiology. He was already deep into collecting books when he served as a resident and disciple of Harvey Cushing at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. The two men shared a close friendship based on both scientific and historical interests. Like Cushing, Fulton became a bibliophile, bibliographer, and historian. His special collecting interest was physiological works from the 16th to 18th century. In addition to his major texts in physiology, Fulton authored or coauthored biographies of Harvey Cushing, Benjamin Silliman, and Michael Servetus, and bibliographies of Fracastoro’s poem Syphilis, Luigi Galvani and his nephew Aldini, Richard Lower and John Mayow, Joseph Priestley, Robert Boyle, and early works on anesthesia. Fulton became the first chairman of the Department of History of Medicine at Yale in 1951 with offices across the hall from the Historical Library offices. In 1956, Fulton wrote in his diary that his wife Lucia “had been at me to have a portrait done, and since Deane Keller [who had done Harvey Cushing’s portrait] thinks I am hopeless as a sitter and has refused to persevere with the several he started some years ago, I felt free to go to Sir Gerald.”  So began a summer of sittings for the portrait of John Fulton sitting on the left side of the fire place in the Medical Historical Library.  Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, who had painted portraits of the royal family including Queen Elizabeth, met with John Fulton for 40 sittings in the summer of 1956.  The first sitting, from 2:30-6:45, involved Fulton stepping up on his platform and sitting in a “rather stiff Victorian armchairs with sundry pillows on the seat since my arm seem to be shorter than those of most of his subjects.”  Over the course of the sitting, Fulton heard stories about Kelly’s interactions with artists such as Renoir.  Fulton was “completely fascinated by the man,” and the time passed pleasantly until a series of photographs of Fulton were taken at the end of the session. “A series of loud and devastating expletives coming out from under the hood; his private photographer would have to take his vacation at this wrong time!”  However, a secretary came in, grabbed the negatives, and stated she would develop and print them for Kelly.  Fulton went home feeling that he had had “a cosmic experience.” Ensuing diary entries capture the details of sitting for the portrait, and more on Gerald Kelly, who had a variety of humorous and interesting anecdotes about various artists and prominent figures of the 20th century.  Fulton wrote that in the final portrait, he is sitting at his desk in the Historical Library, although Kelly had never seen his desk, and used photographs to fill in details.  Behind Fulton, there are representations of his books and diaries, which he wrote in from 1915-1960.  The portrait currently hangs in the back of the Medical Historical, to the left side of the fireplace.  

Have OMICS analysis related questions? Don't forget, there are weekly Bioinformatics Support Office Hours for a quick consultation!!! Every Thursday from 10am until Noon. 

We are excited to announce the resumption of several on-site library services, including book lending though a contact-free pickup system. TO BORROW BOOKS Simply select "Request for pickup at the Medical Library Entrance" in the Orbis record of the book you wish to borrow, enter your login credentials, and complete the prompts to place your order. Once submitted, the book will be checked out to your account and you'll be notified by email when it's ready for pickup. Your book will be held on a cart outside the medical library entrance for one week. If you have questions or can’t pick up your item in the allotted time, please email AskYaleMedicalLibrary@yale.edu before your pickup period expires. TO RETURN BOOKS To return materials, simply drop them in the book depository outside the medical library entrance. STAY SAFE When retrieving or returning items, please adhere to the following safety protocols: Maintain social distancing Wear a mask Move through pickup area as quickly as possible Avoid touching surfaces or materials waiting for pickup by others

The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is being felt in many areas of the university, and the library is no exception. For fiscal year 2021, the library must reduce its general collection expenditures by around 10%. To achieve this target, we have compiled a list of journal titles and databases for cancellation. Each item on this list has been carefully assessed prior to being selected for cancellation.  Your feedback is an essential part of this process and we welcome your input. Please also let us know if the cancellation of a specific title will significantly impact your work, so that we can consider whether a different title can be cancelled in its place. See the list and learn more about our methodology here While it’s necessary to reduce our collection expenditures, we continue to offer a variety of services to minimize the impact of these cancellations on your research, teaching and practice:  Our interlibrary loan department stands ready to help you access articles in journals that we do not subscribe to, at no charge to you.  Your librarian can work with you to identify available resources that may be of interest. While we cannot commit to new subscriptions at this time, we will gladly take recommendations for potential future purchases.  The current financial situation is evolving, and the elimination of additional subscriptions may be necessary at a later time. Please let us know if you have any feedback, questions or concerns. We are here to support you in this uncertain time.

Written by Alicia Petersen, PhD student, History of Science and Medicine Program (HSHM) Herbaria, collections of dried plant specimens that were (usually) adhered to sheets of paper, were very popular in 18th-century Europe. From professional botanists exploring the Americas to amateur scientists roaming the fields near their homes, many used herbaria to store preserved plants for later study. In order to better understand how early moderns “did” science, I decided to create my own herbarium (see the page below) following the guidelines for plant collection and preservation detailed in 18th-century British manuals. The simple act of following directions ended up being a bit more challenging than I had anticipated! Sitting on my bedroom floor, surrounded by an assortment of plant cuttings, I read and re-read 18th-century botanist William Withering’s instructions for plant preservation. Withering’s famous works contain directives like the following: “… specimens may be dried tolerably well between the leaves of a large folio book, laying other books upon it to give the necessary pressure: but in all cases too much pressure must be avoided.” (A botanical arrangement of British plants…, pg. xlvi) I couldn’t help thinking: that’s it? Withering fails to give his readers any indication of how much pressure is too much, a seemingly important detail. Other ambiguities led to a variety of errors on my part, including the burnt fern specimen pictured below. What’s more, when it came time to identify the specimens I’d collected, I found myself even more perplexed. Unable to rely on photographs or iPhone apps, it quickly became that 18th-century botany was like a foreign language. I needed to be fluent, but unfortunately, I only understood about every fourth word. This made for quite the adventure. The Medical Historical Library’s collections served as an important resource as I went tromping through the past. For this project, one object was particularly stunning: an actual 18th-century herbarium, complete with plant specimens that are over 250 years old. The herbarium dates back to the 1760’s and has been attributed to Frenchman Jean Seris, who is thought to have been a student at Paris’ Académie Royal de Chirurgie. While I relied on manuals like Withering’s to guide my collecting practices, I followed Seris’ example for format and layout. Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this project was the immense amount of knowledge required to engage in 18th-century natural history. Interacting with Seris’ herbarium, an object that represents knowledge in practice, provided even greater insight. By reading this “book of nature,” I was able to see 18th-century plants both through Seris’ eyes and my own. Below: Pages from Jean Seris’s Herbarium with dried specimens, 1761