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Article by Blake Spencer – July 7, 2023 At Yale University’s Center for Preservation and Conservation, there is an air of care and fastidiousness when dealing with materials that hold irreplaceable value to multiple audiences. From arabesque covers bearing allegories relating to metaphysics to the material world of important information detailed within those covers, there is more to each item than the exterior presents at first glance. These collections carry the practical usage of research, knowledge, and spiritual life within each page. These materials deteriorate over time, whether the cause is through specific external agents of deterioration or because of internal vice, such as the acidity of the paper. As a student interning at Yale University through the HBCU Library Alliance, I learned about preservation and conservation methods used to care for multiple items in need of urgent intervention. This includes interleaving, rehousing, and other basic preservation skills I plan on taking back to my workplace, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. For my project I helped with processing and stabilizing the Michael L. Charney papers. Some of the documents being processed within this collection include: The Black Panther Newsletter Students for a Democratic Society pamphlets New Haven Mayday Newsletter One of the most intriguing parts of the collection had to be the pamphlets and newsletters relating to the New Haven Mayday protest, a rally that officially kicked off on May 1st, 1970 against the incarceration of the 9 Black Panthers charged for the death of Alex Rackley in Connecticut. At the height of COINTELPRO, a string of illegal surveillance and disruptive operations against recalcitrant American political organizations, FBI spies within subversive spaces were a common occurrence. Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old Black Panther Party member, was tortured and killed after being suspected as an informant for the FBI. With the Chairman of the Black Panther party, Bobby Seale, giving a speech the same day as Rackley’s murder, Seale – along with eight other members of the Panthers – were indicted. The imprisonment of the New Haven 9 served as the impetus for one of the most well-known trial protests in the United States, and organizations such as the Yale Strike News that published an informational newspaper relating to the Black Panther Party throughout the days leading up to the May Day protest. With seething tensions bubbling amongst Yale’s students and teaching faculty throughout the campus, demands presented by Yale’s Strike Steering Committee were placed at the administration’s doorstep. These demands not only called for Yale to make a statement demanding the "state of Connecticut end the injustice of the trial of Bobby Seale and the New Haven Panthers” but to provide support to New Haven residents with material change, such as creating the Calvin Hill Day Care Center by 1970 and allocating $5 million dollars for immediate construction of 2000 units for low and moderate income housing. The Michael L. Charney collection also holds various records from organizations dealing with the grievances shared by many medical students and medical professionals across the country, one of the most prevalent being the Medical Committee for Human Rights. One of the pamphlets I came across while processing was titled “Health Radicals: Crusade to Shift Medical Power to the People." This pamphlet talks about how MCHR as an organization has evolved into the “voice of the humanist medicine,” carrying out the “staffing (of) community-controlled free clinics to pushing back against established health-care institutions.” The MCHR developed its ideologies alongside the civil rights movement in the 1960s, including fighting for the “demystification of the medical art” and the “direct control of health institutions by health workers and the people they serve.” While working with Archivist Kathi Isham and Conservator Laura O’Brien Miller on the Michael L. Charney papers, I engaged with Charney’s work as a medical student while learning more about the processes that go into preservation. Learning how to make object mounts for exhibitions that hold these manuscripts, how to make items more accessible through photo digitization, and housing materials in protective, archival enclosures for safe handling and to extend the life of documents have been very gratifying experiences, making the arduous task of preservation worthwhile. Special thanks to Laura O’Brien-Miller and Kathi Isham, my project supervisors during my internship, and to the HBCU Library Alliance for this opportunity.  

The Medical Library recently added dozens of new resources to our collections as well as upgraded access to some existing ones. Highlights include: ERIC and Agricola are now searchable via the OVID interface, which maximizes advanced search capabilities. New modules are available in Aquifer (Clinical Excellence, Family Medicine, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Integrated Illness Scripts, and Neurology) and faculty may now use Aquifer content in the classroom. A new subscription to TRIP Pro which supports evidence based medicine (EBM) by providing a snapshot of the current research on a clinical topic. Search results are color coded based on the EBM pyramid, making it easy to identify the quality of the evidence. Expanded access to McGraw Hill modules including AccessAPN, AccessCardiology, AccessDermatologyDxRx, AccessHemOnc, Access Neurology, and the Case Files Collection. New Sketchy license View the full list of new resources below. New Databases 5Minute Consult is a point-of-care tool developed for clinicians to quickly find evidence-based answers to support the diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing care of patients with 2,000 common diseases/conditions, drugs, and diagnostic and treatment algorithms AccessPharmacy supports teaching and learning in pharmacy education, including key pharmacy textbooks, drug monographs, drug flashcards, practice tests, and other multimedia content Agricola is a curated database of agricultural literature from the USDA National Agricultural Library. It is now searchable via the OVID interface to maximize advanced search capabilities. Aquifer provides medical students with interactive patient cases to support the learning in clinical clerkships. The library upgraded our subscription and became a Curricular Partner. This provides faculty with the flexibility to use Aquifer content in the classroom and access to the following new modules Clinical Excellence, Family Medicine, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Integrated Illness Scripts, and Neurology. ERIC or the Education Resources Information Center, is an online database of education research and literature. It is now searchable via the OVID interface to maximize advanced search capabilities. Health Care Administration Database includes citations relating to hospital administration, insurance, law, statistics, business management, personnel management ethics, health economics, and public health administration. JAMA Evidence provides resources to help students and clinicians translate the theory of evidence-based medicine (EBM) into practice. Includes textbooks, tools, and forms to make decisions including validity, importance and applicability of claims. TRIP Pro supports evidence-based medicine (EBM) by providing a snapshot of the current research evidence on a clinical topic. Content in Trip Pro includes clinical guidelines, systematic reviews, regulatory guidance, randomized controlled trials and more. Search results are color coded based on the EBM pyramid, making it easy to identify the quality of the evidence.   New Journals  The AASLD Collection is a package of journals from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Titles include Hepatology, Clinical Liver Disease, Liver Transplantation, and Hepatology Communications. The AJOB Package includes access to the American Journal of Bioethics, AJOB Empirical Bioethics, AJOB Primary Research, and AJOB Neuroscience. These journals focus on addressing ethical challenges in health science. The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) and the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) are both peer reviewed journals that discuss topics related to the kidneys and nephrology. NEJM Evidence is a new peer-reviewed journal published by the NEJM Group aimed at the evaluation of clinical research. Articles focus on validating existing clinical findings, improving the design of new clinical trials, and contextualizing clinical evidence. Reaching Teens: Strength-Based, Trauma-Sensitive, Resilience-Building Communication Strategies Rooted in Positive Youth Development is a digital toolkit, developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, to support clinicians in effectively engaging with teenagers. Specialized Resources Partek Flow software is used to analyze RNA, small RNA and DNA sequencing. It allows for users to develop analysis pipelines and data visualizations. Due to popularity, the library purchased an additional software license. New Journal Backfiles The American Journal of Gastroenterology is published by the American College of Gastroenterology and is one of the leading journals on gastroenterology and hepatology. We now have backfiles back to 1998. The Medical Clinics of North America, is published bimonthly, each issue of this peer-reviewed journal focuses on a specific medical topic and contributions are provided from leading experts in the related field. AASLD Backfile includes archived content of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases journals.    

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

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.