Research Resources

Special Collections > Research Resources

A Guide to Selected Research Resources in the History of the Health Sciences

Daniel Smith, J.D.

[PDF version]

 

Professional & Scholarly Associations

• American Association for the History of Medicine
• American Osler Society
• History of Science Society
• American Historical Association
• Society of American Archivists
• Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP)

Libraries

• National Library of Medicine (NLM)
  • History of Medicine
  • History of Medicine Fact Sheet
  • Directory of History of Medicine Collections: US & International
  • Site Map
• Library of Congress
  • Reference Tools & Services
  • Rare Books & Special Collections
  • Catalogue of Thomas Jefferson's Library
  • John Meredith Toner Collection
• UNC Health Sciences Library: Special Collections
• Duke University Medical Center Library: History of Medicine
• East Carolina University: Laupus Library: History Collections
• State Library of North Carolina
• Countway Library of Medicine: Center for the History of Medicine [Harvard University]
• Stanford Medical History Center
• New York Academy of Medicine: Historical Collections
• American Antiquarian Society
• Wellcome Library [London]
• Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Medécine et d'Odontologie (BIUM): Histoire de la Medécine et de l'Art Dentaire [Paris]

Online & Print Catalogs

• UNC Libraries Catalog [Classic Version - recommended for subject searching]
• UNC Libraries Catalog [Default Version]
• Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) Catalog [Searches UNC, Duke, NCSU & NCCU]
• Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office [1880-1961]
• WorldCat [Over 100 million records from 1000s of libraries worldwide]
  • UNC E-Resource
  • public access version
• Library of Congress Online Catalog
• Library of Congress: Gateway to Library Catalogs [National & International]
• National Library of Medicine: Catalog & Services
  • NLM Catalog
• Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office [1880-1961]
• Index Medicus [1879-1927]
  • Print only - HSL Basement
• Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Medical Literature [1916-1926]
  • Print only - HSL Basement
• Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus [1927-1956]
  • Print only - HSL Basement
• Cumulated Index Medicus / National Library of Medicine [1960-2000]
  • Print only - HSL Basement
• The National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints; A Cumulative Author List Representing Library of Congress Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American Libraries
  • UNC Davis Library Reference - 754 volumes; not online

Classification Schemes & Catalog Searching

• National Library of Medicine: Classification & Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
• Library of Congress: Classification & Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

Digital Collections

• UNC Health Sciences Library: Special Collections
• UNC Libraries: McKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations
• National Library of Medicine: Images in the History of Medicine
• Internet Archive
  • UNC contributed content
  • HSL contributed content
• Library of Congress: Digital Collections
  • American Memory
  • Prints & Photographs
• State Library of North Carolina Digital Collections
• American Antiquarian Society: Digital Collections
• Warnock Digital Library
• American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement

Online Exhibitions

• Special Collections at UNC Health Sciences Library
• UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health: Meeting the Public Health Challenges of the 21st Century
• Oliver Smithies' Nobel Prize [Special Collections, UNC Health Sciences Library]
• The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of the University of North Carolina
• The First Century of the First State University
• True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina
• Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web [searchable database of several thousand listings]
• National Library of Medicine Exhibitions
  • By subject
  • By date
• Cholera Online: A Modern Pandemic in Words and Images
• Artificial Anatomy: Papier-Mâché Anatomical Models [Smithsonian]
• New York Academy of Medicine

Aggregator Sites

• Medical Library Association: History of Medicine Links
• Intute: Medical History
• The Scout Report [searchable & browsable archives]
• IPL2 [searchable & browsable archives]

Listservs & Blogs

• The Common Curator Blog [formerly The Carolina Curator]
• National Library of Medicine: Email Lists
• H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online
  • H-Sci-Med-Tech: History of Science, Medicine and Technology
• The Scout Report
• A Repository for Bottled Monsters [unofficial blog for the National Museum of Health and Medicine]
• Biomedicine on Display [Medical Museion at University of Copenhagen]

Bookdealers, Antiquarians & Auction Houses

• Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America [ABAA]
• AbeBooks.com [online database of secondhand general, out-of-print, and scholarly books]
• AddAll: Used and Out of Print Search
• Sotheby's
• Christie's
• Swann Auction Galleries
• PBA Galleries: Auctioneers & Appraisers

Dissertations

• UNC Health Sciences Library: Special Collections: International Medical Theses
• Dissertations & Theses at UNC [UNC Students]
  • Browse by School or Department
  • Browse by Discipline
• Dissertations in the History of Medicine
• Dissertation Abstracts [UNC E-Resource]
• Directory of History Dissertations [American Historical Association]

Oral Histories

• UNC Health Sciences Library: Special Collections
• National Library of Medicine: Guide to Oral Histories in Medicine and the Health Sciences
• Oral History Association

Museums

• Country Doctor Museum [East Carolina University]
• National Museum of Health and Medicine
• Hunterian Museum [Royal College of Surgeons of England]
• Mutter Museum [The College of Physicians of Philadelphia]

Archives & Manuscripts

• UNC Health Sciences Library: Special Collections
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
• ArchiveGrid [contains nearly one million collection descriptions]
• Library of Congress: Archival Finding Aids
• Library of Congress: American Women: Health & Medicine
• National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
• Repositories of Primary Materials
• North Carolina State Archives
• Duke University Medical Center Archives
• Medical Archives and Manuscripts Survey [Wellcome Library, London]

UNC Special Collections

• Health Sciences Library: Special Collections
• Health Sciences Library: Digital Collections
• Wilson Library: Digital Collections
• Wilson Library: Manuscripts: Archival Finding Aids
• Wilson Library: Manuscripts: University Archives & Records Service
• Wilson Library: Manuscripts: Southern Historical Collections
• Wilson Library: Manuscripts: Southern Oral History Program
• Wilson Library: Rare Book Collection
• Wilson Library: North Carolina Collection
• Wilson Library: Gottschalk Collection of the Human Kidney

UNC Online Resources & Guides

• Guide to Research Resources in the History of the Health Sciences [HSL Special Collections]
• A Guide to Researching Public Health at UNC: Selected Current and Historical Resources
• UNC Libraries: Eighteenth Century Collections Online [150,000 full-text U.K. and American titles]
• E-Research Tools at UNC
• Selected Resources in History: Databases, Journals, Guides
• Selected Resources in Medicine: Databases, Journals, Guides
• Selected Resources in Health Sciences: Databases, Journals, Guides
• Finding Primary Source Documents
• United States History Research Guide
• America's Historical Newspapers: 1690-1800

Online Journals

• North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection [HSL Special Collections]
• PubMed [National Library of Medicine - 18,000,000 citations & full-text articles to circa 1948]
• PubMed Central [National Library of Medicine - digital archive of biomedical & life sciences journals]
• Directory of Open Access Journals
• Journal of the Medical Library Association [current & archived issues]
• Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences [UNC e-resource - online from 1946; in print from 1946-2003]
• Bulletin of the History of Medicine [UNC e-resource - online from 1996; in print from 1939-2003]
• The AAHM Newsletter [American Association for the History of Medicine - online from 2000 to present]
• Early Science and Medicine [UNC e-resource - online from 1996; in print from 1996]
• Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part C. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Science [UNC e-resource - online from 1998; in print from 1998]
• Social History of Medicine [UNC e-resource - online from 1996; in print from 1988]

Selected Books & References

• UNC Health Sciences Library: Early American Medical Imprints, 1668-1820 [Over 1800 titles - microfilm set]
• De humani corporis fabrica [On the Fabric of the Human Body] [Basel, 1543] / by Andreas Vesalius
  • First Edition
  • CD-ROM
  • Online Edition
• Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus [On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals] [Frankfurt, 1628] / by William Harvey.
  • UNC
  • Online Latin edition
  • English translation
• Heirs of Hippocrates [Online edition]
• History of American Medical Literature from 1776 to the Present Time [1876], by Samuel Gross [Online edition]
• Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching [1910] / by Abraham Flexner [online edition]
• Medical Education in Europe: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching [1912] / by Abraham Flexner [online edition]
• Morton's Medical Bibliography: An Annotated Check-list of Texts Illustrating the History of Medicine [Garrison and Morton] / edited by Jeremy M. Norman [UNC]
• An Introduction to the History of Medicine: With Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Bibliographic Data / by Fielding H. Garrison [UNC]
• Becoming a Physician: Medical Education in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, 1750-1945 / by Thomas Neville Bonner [UNC electronic resource]
• To the Ends of the Earth: Women's Search for Education in Medicine / by Thomas Neville Bonner [HSL]
• Clio in the Clinic: History in Medical Practice / edited by Jacalyn Duffin [HSL]
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions / by Thomas S. Kuhn [1st ed. 1962; 2nd 1970; 3rd 1996] [UNC]
• National Library of Medicine: Syllabus Archive in the History of Medicine

Digitization

• Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web / by Daniel J. Cohen & Roy Rosenzweig [Center for History and New Media, George Mason University]
• D-Lib Magazine [Online journal of digital library research and development]
• North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online [NC ECHO]
• Ithaka [Research organization for digital technology]
• Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Preservation and Conservation

• A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Index Report on the State of America's Collections [summary & full report]
• Survey of North Carolina Cultural Heritage Repositories Final Report
• Library of Congress: Caring for Your Collections
• American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
• Northeast Document Conservation Center

Book Collecting

• Rare Book School [University of Virginia]
• Learn More about Rare Books [Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America]
• Your Old Books [Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, American Library Association]
• Fine Books & Collections [Magazine published in Durham, NC]
• The Private Library [Blog for collectors]

Information Management

• Edward Tufte and Graphics Press[Authority on information design and presentation]
  • Online essays
• BlogLines [Free RSS reader/aggregator]
• RefWorks [Free web-based citation management software for UNC affiliates]
• EndNote [Bibliographic management software]
• Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers
• Mini-Courses [UNC Health Sciences Library]
• Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services [UNC Health Sciences Library]
• National Library of Medicine Mobile Options [PubMed, MedlinePlus, etc.]
• UNC Libraries Mobile Options

Funding & Opportunities

• UNC GrantSource Library
• H-Net: Academic Announcements [Calls for papers, conferences, funding, fellowships, web sites, etc.]
• History of Medicine Guide [American Association for the History of Medicine]
• McLendon-Thomas Award in the History of Medicine [Bullitt History of Medicine Club]