October is Archives Month, with a theme of "Celebrating the American Record" as designated by the Society of American Archivists, and October 19-25th is  North Carolina Archives Week. Archives are essential to the historical record, and include a wide range of document types, including such things as letters, legal records, transcripts, photographs, reports, manuscripts, ephemera, artifacts, realia, tapes, and materials in electronic and other formats as well.

The University of North Carolina holds vast archival collections, and finding aids (or guides) to the collections can be found for a large number of these in the

There are a variety of physical and online exhibitions to check out at UNC Health Sciences Library at the start of the 2009-10 academic year. In the first-floor lobby display cases are the following three exhibits:

:: Great Minds, Great Finds: Explore Library Collections -- A survey of historical texts, images, instruments, and artifacts drawn from Special Collections at the library, representing the five professional schools in UNC Health Affairs: Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health

:: New Books in the History of the Health Sciences -- A selection of recent acquisitions, including such titles as

What do Ronald Reagan and the Woman's Auxiliary to the American Medical Association have in common? Operation Coffeecup! To find out more, check out Operation Coffeecup and Socialized Medicine on the Carolina Curator blog or stop by the Health Sciences Library to see the display.

And to learn about the life and invention of the person who helped bring literacy to the blind, take a look at The Bicentennial of Louis Braille [1809-1852] on the blog or in person.

Both of the above displays are now on view in two new exhibition cases that HSL has installed on the first floo

The Carolina Curator blog was recently cited as one of the "100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs" by OnlineUniversities.com.
The blog is an open-ended forum for the history of the health sciences, and serves to alert readers to news and events, useful resources, as well as highlight the activities of HSL's Special Collections and UNC generally. To see current and archived posts, visit the Carolina Curator online.   Congratulations to Daniel Smith, JD, HSL's Special Collections librarian, who is the mind behind the Carolina Curator.

The UNC Health Sciences Library has just been awarded $34,850 for the first year of a three-year NC ECHO digitization grant project funded by the State Library of North Carolina through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Building on a pilot project that resulted in the digitization of historical North Carolina journals in public health, dentistry, and eugenics, the proposed North Carolina History of Health Digital Library will contain over 800 volumes (approx. 350,000 pages) of core journals in medicine, public health, dentistr

"UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health: Meeting the Public Health Challenges of the 21st Century" is a new online exhibition at the UNC Health Sciences Library that features both current initiatives and the history of the School, which was renamed on September 26, 2008 following a $50 million gift from Joan and Dennis Gillings. Visitors to the site will find sections on the Gillings Gift, Research and Teaching, Community and Global Outreach, Water, School History and Deans, North Carolina public health history, and a research guide to public health resources at UNC.

Based on a collaborative exhibition which is still on display at the Health Sciences Library, the onl

In North Carolina over 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1974 under the state’s Eugenics Sterilization Program. Indiana was the first state to implement such a program, and eventually over 30 states followed suit, including North Carolina in 1929. The Eugenics Board of North Carolina reviewed petitions for sterilizations and authorized sterilizations in over 90% of cases. Of those sterilized, approximately 38% were black and 84% were female; moreover, 71% were classified as “feebleminded.” While most states’ sterilization programs diminished in scope after World War II, almost 80% of North Carolina’s cases occurred after 1945. By the lat

On March 3rd, President Obama issued a proclamation for Women's History Month, declaring this year's theme to be "Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet." In this document are cited several women who have exemplified great leadership in this area, including:

Ellen Swallow Richards [1842-1911] -- the first woman accepted into a scientific school in the US, Richards graduated from MIT in 1873 and pioneered the assessment of water quality. HSL has several of her works.