The Common Curator Launches

The Common Curator blog has recently superseded the Carolina Curator, which was previously cited by OnlineUniversities.com as one of the "100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs." After approximately 220 postings on a wide variety of topics since its inception in December 2008, all the content of the Carolina Curator has been incorporated into the Common Curator blog, which will continue in much the same--if broader--vein to document developments in the history of the health sciences, digital libraries, archives, museums, and special collections, as well as tend other issues of import, such as freedom of information, open access, preservation and conservation, public policy, human rights, etc.

All readers of the Carolina Curator are encouraged to follow the Common Curator by visiting the blog's website, or by subscribing to its RSS feed with Google Reader, Bloglines, or your favorite RSS reader. In addition to the new blog, the Common Curator also has a presence on other social media, including Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.

So, thanks for your collective interest and comments--hope to continue hearing from you at the Common Curator!

Ask a Curator Day

September 1, 2010 is "Ask a Curator Day," a one-time worldwide Question & Answer event on Twitter. Modelled on the successful Follow a Museum event on February 1, 2010, users of Twitter can post questions to participating curators of art, history, science, and other collections at #askacurator. A list of individuals and institutions from over 20 countries available for questions can be viewed here.

"The Gross Clinic" Restored and on Exhibition

"An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing The Gross Clinic Anew" is an exhibition currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that will run through January 9, 2011. It features Thomas Eakins' famous painting of 1875, Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic), which has recently undergone a major restoration effort.

The large-scale painting (measuring 8' by 6'6") was purchased by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with the support of over 3,500 donors in 2007 after its previous longtime owner, the Jefferson Medical College (Dr. Gross' alma mater), proposed its sale to museums outside Philadelphia.

The Museum's web site provides much detailed technical and historical information about the painting's conservation treatments over the decades, and dramatically documents the painting's evolving appearance. The image depicted here reflects its current state.

New Curator for Duke History of Medicine Collections

Rachel C. Ingold has been appointed the new Curator for the History of Medicine Collections at Duke University Medical Center Library. She will start September 1, 2010. The previous Curator, Suzanne Porter, retired at the end of July after a long and successful career at Duke, UNC, and other institutions.

Prior to this appointment, Rachel has served in the Conservation Unit in the Duke University Libraries, as an intern at the EPA Library, as an intern the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, and as a Library Technician at the Library of Congress. She has nearly 13 years worth of experience in a library setting.

Rachel holds a BA in Political Science and a BA in Women's Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in Women's Studies from George Washington University, and an MLS from North Carolina Central University. She is a member of the America Library Association and the Special Library Association.

UNC Health Sciences Library Awarded Digitization Grant

Special Collections at UNC Health Sciences Library has recently been awarded $42,675 for year two of a three-year NC ECHO digitization grant project for the creation of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection. Funded by the State Library of North Carolina through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), the 2010-11 awards were announced June 10, 2010 and totalled $4.9 million for statewide library projects; the complete list of awards, including others at UNC, is available at the LSTA web site.

Work on the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection commenced with a pilot project over two years ago, and through year one of the grant project (FY 09-10), over 130,000 pages of core journals and books in medicine, public health, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing from 1849 to the present have been digitized. The digital collection will eventually grow to over 800 volumes and approximately 300,000 pages. This material thoroughly documents the development of health care and the health professions within North Carolina and is thus a significant part of the state’s cultural heritage and history.

While digitized content is also being made available via the Internet Archive, the project is actively developing an integrated web site that will provide consolidated online access and advanced searching functionalities. The digital collection will moreover provide historical context for the resources in the various health disciplines and K-12 educational materials for selected content. A glimpse of public health images from the digital collection is available via Flickr.

Daniel Smith, Special Collections Librarian at UNC Health Sciences Library, is the principal investigator and project manager, and has directed each phase of the grant. Partners in the project include the Carolina Digital Library and Archive, the UNC Library, and Learn NC.

Note: The image above is from the Health Bulletin (1927), v. 42, n. 2, p. 1, published by the North Carolina State Board of Health.

2010 North Carolina Book Awards

The North Carolina Literary and Historical Association (NCLHA), established in 1900, has issued a call for entries for the 2010 North Carolina Book Awards. Several different competitions are now open, including the Hardee Rives Award for Dramatic Arts, the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction (successor to the Mayflower Cup), the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry, the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, and the American Association of University Women Award for Juvenile Literature.

To be eligible for consideration, a work must meet the following criteria:

-- It must be an original book published during the twelve months ending June 30 of the year for which the award is given;

-- Its author(s) must have maintained legal or physical residence, or a combination of both, in North Carolina for the three years preceding the close of the contest period; and

-- Three (3) copies of each entry must be submitted to the Awards Coordinator for the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.

Additional guidelines are available on the NCLHA web site. The deadline for receipt of nominated books is July 15, 2010.

Other related awards include the Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the preservation of North Carolina history, and the R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award, which acknowledges literary contributions. At the annual meeting each year the Historical Society of North Carolina presents the R. D. W. Connor Award for the best article to have appeared in the North Carolina Historical Review in the preceding year and the Hugh T. Lefler Award for the best paper by an undergraduate student.

Visit the NCLHA web site for further information about the Association, which is among the oldest of its kind in the nation.

The Internet Archive Book Drive

The Internet Archive has been scanning books for some years now, and we're always looking for more. In addition to 1,000,000+ eBooks available to anyone available through Open Library, we've announced the release of modern books for the print-disabled community in a special format called DAISY. It's a brand new collection--one of the largest available online. For too long, print-disabled people have been denied access to the full breadth of contemporary books, and we'd like to assist in tipping that balance back to where it should be, universal access for all readers.

Please help us by donating books to be scanned or with financial support for the scanning process. Based on existing foundation funding, we are sponsoring the scanning of the first 10,000 books that are donated in this Book Drive. We're looking for wonderful and important books for this first 10,000 and even more books and money to keep it going. We will make these digital books as available to the world as we can, including the print-disabled, and will preserve the physical book for the long term.

How Does The Book Drive Work?
You can simply send up to 100 books or drop them off in person at our headquarters:

Internet Archive Book Drive
300 Funston Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118

If you'd like to make a donation of more than 100 books, wow! That would be wonderful, but please give us a call on +1 415-561-6767 to arrange shipping and handling.

Read more . . . .

Edward G. Holley, National Library Leader, Dies at 83

One of the most outstanding leaders in 20th century American librarianship, Dr. Edward G. Holley, died peacefully Thursday, February 18 in Durham, North Carolina. A highly respected dean and professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1972 to 1985 and William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor from 1989 until he retired from the School in 1995, Dr. Holley was known as a giant in the library world.

Holley was born in 1927 in Pulaski, Tenn. In 1949 he earned a B.A. in English from David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tenn. He then received an M.A. in library science in 1951 from George Peabody College for Teachers, also in Nashville. In 1961 Holley completed a Ph.D. in library science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He began his professional
academic career at the University of Houston, and he spent nine years in Texas before coming to Chapel Hill in 1972 to assume the position of dean and professor in UNC at Chapel Hill's SILS.

Holley served as president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 1974-75 and received nearly every major award his profession bestowed, notable among them the ALA Scarecrow Press Award for his published dissertation, Charles Evans, American Bibliographer (1964); the ALA Melvil Dewey Award (1983); the ALA Joseph Lippincott Award (1987); Distinguished Alumnus Awards (Peabody Library School, Vanderbilt University, 1987;
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 1988); the Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award (Association of College and Research Libraries, 1988); and the Beta Phi Mu Award (1992). In 1994, he was honored with a festschrift, For the Good of the Order: Essays in Honor of Edward G. Holley, the title bearing
witness to his tireless professional devotion.

An eminent historian, Holley produced over 100 books, articles and essays on topics as diverse as library biography, the history of library education, copyright, library administration and the place of personal morality in public life. He served on countless high level committees,
worked for accreditation standards, defended the MLS, testified before Congressional committees and acted as library consultant. As ALA president during turbulent times (1974-1975), he was largely responsible for establishing a federated system for ALA ("every tub on its own bottom").

While dean of SILS, Holley established a doctoral program, hired distinguished faculty and expanded the master's program to two years, providing a core curriculum known famously to students during his years as "The Block." In 1975 he established the internship program at the Environmental Protection Agency Library that still exists today. As professor and advisor, he was an inspiration to his students.

"Ed was not only a distinguished professional, but also a caring and compassionate individual," said Dr. Barbara B. Moran, interim dean of SILS. "He was one of the most unselfish people I ever met and was always concerned with the good of others. He was a wonderful mentor and someone who cared deeply about the students, the faculty and the School. Using his own term, he always put the "good of the order" before his individual needs. He was truly a remarkable person and one who will be missed deeply by those who had the opportunity to know him."

Dr. Holley was preceded in death by his wife, Bobbie Lee Holley. He is survived by four children, Gailon Holley, Jens Holley, Amy Holley and Beth Holley; and three grandchildren, Melody Holley, Faith Holley and Julia Ruth.

A memorial service for Dr. Holley, will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 12, 2010 at Gerrard Hall on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.

A reception in the historic Queen Anne Faculty Lounge at the UNC Campus YMCA (next to Gerrard Hall) will immediately follow the memorial service. All who would like to join the family are invited to attend.

Gifts in memory of Dr. Holley may be directed to the "Edward G. Holley Student Research Fund" at SILS. For more information on how to make donations in Dr. Holley's name, please contact the SILS office at 919-843-8337 or send e-mail to wmonroe@unc.edu.

Note: Portions of this news story have been reprinted from "Interview with Edward G. Holley" by Tommy Nixon, which was published in North Carolina Libraries, 56(2), Summer 1998, p.65-70.)

Study of Open Access Publishing Project

A survey is being conducted by the Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) project, financed by the European Commission. The study is investigating publishing practices and attitudes towards Open Access publishing. More information about the SOAP project can be found on the project's public website.

The survey is primarily aimed at active researchers in public and private organisations, from all fields of the research in the sciences and humanities. It focuses on publication of research articles in peer-reviewed journals. All responses will be confidential and submitted anonymously. It should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. Results will be made publicly available in the second half of 2010.

The SOAP consortium represents key stakeholders such as publishers (BioMed Central Ltd (BMC), Sage Publications Ltd (SAGE) UK and Springer Science+Business Media Deutschland GmbH (SSBM)), funding agencies (Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) UK), libraries (Max Planck Digital Library of the Max Planck Society) and a broad spectrum of research disciplines.

It aims to study the new open access business models that have emerged as a result of the shift from print to digital documents and inform the European Commission and all stakeholders about the risks, opportunities and essential requirements for a smooth transition to open access publishing.

Winner of 2010 McLendon-Thomas Award in the History of Medicine

Chailee Mann-Stadt, a third-year MD student in the UNC School of Medicine, is the winner of the third annual McLendon-Thomas Award in the History of Medicine. Sponsored by the Bullitt History of Medicine Club, the essay competition carries a $500 prize that is funded by UNC alumni S. Gregory Boyd (MD '03, JD '04) and Laura Boyd (JD '02). The award honors Dr. William McLendon and Dr. Colin Thomas, Jr. and recognizes scholarly excellence in the history of the health sciences.

Chailee's winning essay was entitled, "Drs. Dewey and Milligan: Early Women in American Medicine," and she will be delivering a presentation to the Bullitt Club during the lecture series for 2010-11.

The essay competition is open to all UNC-Chapel Hill students in the health sciences: medicine, pharmacy, public health, dentistry, nursing, and allied health sciences. The next deadline for submissions is April 1, 2011; for further information, please see the competition guidelines.

:: Greg and Laura Boyd live in New York City, where he is an attorney with Davis & Gilbert LLP and she is professional photographer. Greg considers the history of medicine to be one of the most important aspects of his medical education and Drs. McClendon and Thomas among the best role models possible. They both strongly believe that the history of medicine represents a critical perspective and focus on the art of medicine that are necessary for training the best possible physicians, health care executives, and policy makers.

:: Dr. William W. McLendon served from 1973-1995 at UNC as Director of the Hospital Clinical Laboratories and as Professor and Vice-Chair of Pathology. Since his retirement in 1995 he has been Professor Emeritus of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. An MD graduate of UNC in 1956, he and Bob Whitlock (MD '57) were the student co-founders in 1954 of the Bullitt History of Medicine Club. Dr. McLendon is the co-author, along with the late Drs. William Blythe and Floyd Denny, of the recently published Bettering the Health of the People: W. Reece Berryhill, the UNC School of Medicine, and the North Carolina Good Health Movement.

:: Dr. Colin G. Thomas, Jr. joined the faculty of the UNC School of Medicine in 1952, and is currently Byah Thomason-Sanford Doxey Professor of Surgery. From 1966-1984 he served as Chair of the Department of Surgery, and from 1984-1989 as Chief of the Division of General Surgery. Dr. Thomas was one of the early faculty members of the Bullitt History of Medicine Club, and is the co-author, along with Mary Jane Kagarise, of the 1997 history, Legends and Legacies: A Look Inside: Four Decades of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1952-1993.

:: For more information on the Bullitt Club and mp3 recordings of past lectures, please visit the Bullitt Club website.

The Internet Tidal Wave -- Then and Now

"The Internet Tidal Wave" was the subject of a memorandum delivered to Microsoft executives and other staff by Bill Gates fifteen years ago today, on May 26, 1995. The memo is supplied in its entirety on Wired Magazine's This Day in Tech, and is remarkable both for its prescience and for its observations that from today's vantage seem almost quaint, such as the following:

Most important is that the Internet has bootstrapped itself as a place to publish content. It has enough users that it is benefiting from the positive feedback loop of the more users it gets, the more content it gets, and the more content it gets, the more users it gets. I encourage everyone on the executive staff and their direct reports to use the Internet.

The memo was made available as a trial exhibit in a District Court filing for the antitrust case, United States v. Microsoft.

Journal Cancellations Review for UNC Health Sciences Library

The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) is preparing for reductions to the FY 2010/2011 acquisitions budget. As a result, we are again reviewing all areas of purchasing and asking publishers to keep price increases to a minimum for 2011. However, the primary strategy for finding reductions is to continue the 2009 comprehensive review of active journal subscriptions. Approximately 95 percent of HSL’s acquisitions budget is spent on journal or database subscriptions. To achieve budget reductions we must lower this recurring annual expense through targeted cancellations.

Last year, 670 users helped us evaluate our subscriptions and we need even more help this year. During the next couple of months we plan to post a list of potential journal cancellations and to ask for feedback. Here is some preliminary information about this review effort, which is also available via the Journal Review homepage:

Cancellation Criteria
Timeline
FAQ

Our goal is the same as for 2009: to keep as much valued content available as possible, minimizing negative impact on our community of users, while still achieving our budget reduction targets. Please keep checking the Journal Review homepage for updates and changes, and your opportunity to provide feedback. We value all feedback received and use it to help make the best decisions possible.

The 2009 review process helped greatly to reduce recurring annual expenses. Through extensive feedback from the UNC Chapel Hill Health Affairs community and beyond, and through aggressive negotiations with journal publishers for better pricing, we were able to cancel only 58 titles. We also implemented other changes to save costs, such as converting more journal subscriptions from print plus online to online only. However, these savings will not carry the HSL through another budget reduction in 2010/2011, so the comprehensive review continues.

While the need to reduce the acquisitions budget is driven partly by current economic conditions, carrying out a journals cancellation review is normal library practice, done most recently in 2009 and 2003. Furthermore, our acquisitions budget cannot keep pace with the annual price increases for journals in the health sciences, as the average cost of a health sciences journal is now $1,400.

First National VIVO Conference: Enabling National Networking of Scientists

Enabling National Networking of Scientists
August 12-13, 2010
New York Hall of Science

The first annual National VIVO Conference, Enabling National Networking of Scientists, will bring together scientists, developers, publishers, funding agencies, research officers, students and those supporting the development of team science. This two day conference will begin with workshops and tutorials for those new to VIVO, those implementing VIVO at their institutions, and those wishing to develop applications using VIVO. Invited speakers will present regarding the Semantic Web, Linked Open Data and the role of VIVO in support of team science. Panelists will discuss adoption and implementation findings. Feedback sessions will engage participants in requirements gathering and brainstorming regarding future network services. Presenters will discuss mapping, social networking, crowd sourcing, support for societies and other national network applications. Learn more at the conference web site.

VIVO is an open source, open ontology, research discovery platform for hosting information about scientists, their interests, activities, and accomplishments. VIVO supports open development and integration of science through simple, standard semantic web technologies. Learn more at the VIVO web site. VIVO is funded by the National Institutes of Health, U24 RR029822.

New Mobile Application for PLoS Medicine

The Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical School in collaboration with the Public Library of Science (PLoS.org) have created a free iPhone application for PLoS Medicine, the open-access journal publishing important original research and analysis relevant to human health.

To give it a test drive, simply visit the iTunes Application store and download it to your iPhone or iPod Touch. To launch the application, simply touch the PLoS icon and you are immediately taken to a screen that contains the most recent and viewed articles, with an option to search for anything else from the current or archive issues using your touch keypad.
Other features include:

• Clear article layout – with options to view the PDF or view online
• Favorite and share – straight from your phone
• Access the full archive – never be without the content you need again
• Get further information – about PLoS in general and PLoS Medicine specifically
  

:: Check out related Carolina Curator blog entries for mobile options at UNC Libraries and the National Library of Medicine.

Friends of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL

The Friends of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL (University College London) has recently established a new blog. The main topic for postings is the pending closure of the Centre, and several researchers, including the University of North Carolina's Dr. Michael McVaugh, have related their observations about its importance for the history of medicine as well as their concern for its future. The Friends blog also has a link to the online petition to Save History of Medicine at UCL, which now has over 3,400 signatures and is open for further supporters.

In addition, the Friends blog has links to articles about the closure: Wellcome Trust Is To Close Its Centre for History of Medicine (British Medical Journal, April 16, 2010) and Terminal Diagnosis for UCL's History of Medicine Centre (Times Higher Education, April 20, 2010). A summary history of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL is available online.

Previous related Carolina Curator postings include: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine To Close (with Call for Papers for conference on The Future of Medical History) and Petition To Save the History of Medicine at University College London.

Dr. Benson Reid Wilcox, UNC Heart Surgeon, Dies at 77

Benson Reid Wilcox, M.D., a pediatric heart surgeon who served 29 years as chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died May 11, 2010, at his home after a courageous battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

Dr. Wilcox served as chief of cardiothoracic surgery at UNC from 1969 to 1998. During that period, which was a time of dramatic advances in heart and lung surgery, the UNC hospital began offering coronary artery surgery, heart and lung transplantation, successful surgery for congenital heart defects in newborn infants, and a comprehensive program for the treatment of lung and esophageal cancer.

Dr. Wilcox was primarily a pediatric heart surgeon whose specialties were congenital heart disease, pediatric cardiac morphology, pediatric chest disease, and pulmonary circulation. He was a co-author of three books and an author of numerous medical journal articles and book chapters. He held important leadership posts in national medical organizations and was especially interested in the training of future surgeons.

Dr. Wilcox, known as Ben, was born May 26, 1932, in Charlotte, N.C., the son of James Simpson Wilcox and Louisa Reid Wilcox. He was raised in Charlotte and graduated from the Darlington School in Rome, Ga., in 1949. He was named 1997 Distinguished Alumnus of the Darlington School.

He earned an A.B. in history from the University of North Carolina in 1953 and an M.D. from the UNC School of Medicine in 1957. As an undergraduate at UNC, he was president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Rex of the Order of Gimghoul. At the UNC medical school, he was president of his class and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society in 1957.

While a medical student in 1956, Dr. Wilcox helped to conduct laboratory research on the application of newly developed heart-lung machines. A heart-lung machine was first used in the operating room at UNC in April 1957, beginning the era of open heart surgery at North Carolina Memorial Hospital.

After serving as a surgery resident at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis (1957-1959) and North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill (1959-1960), he spent two years as a surgical clinical associate at the National Heart Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He then returned to UNC as chief resident in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery (1962-63) and as chief resident in surgery (1963-64).

He joined the UNC Department of Surgery faculty in 1964 and was appointed as chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1969 and as a full professor in 1971. He was named a Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine in 1967. After he retired as chief of cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Wilcox remained on the UNC medical school faculty as Professor of Surgery from 1998 until his death.

Dr. Wilcox also served the university in a number of other capacities. He was a member of the Selection Committee for the North Carolina Fellows Program; the UNC Faculty Committee on Athletics, serving as chairman from 1977 to 1985; and the Morehead Foundation’s Central Selection Committee, serving as chairman from 1989 to 1992. He was on the university’s Faculty Council and other campus-wide committees. He was a member of the executive committee of the Atlantic Coast Conference from 1978 to 1982 and was its president from 1980 to 1981. He also served on the board of directors of the Ronald McDonald House in Chapel Hill from 1981 to 1999.

He held leadership positions in prestigious professional organizations, including chairman of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, chairman of the Advisory Council for Cardiothoracic Surgery of the American College of Surgeons, president of the Nathan A. Womack Surgical Society, and president of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the largest society of thoracic surgeons in the world. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in 2003.

He had a strong interest in graduate medical education, the training of resident physicians. He was instrumental in establishing the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association (TSDA) which was formed to improve cardiothoracic surgery training and education for doctors, and whose members are directors of cardiothoracic surgery residency programs across the United States. From 1985 to 1987, he served as president of TSDA. In 2009, the TSDA honored him by establishing the Benson Wilcox Award for Best Resident Paper, to be presented each year at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons' annual meeting for the best scientific abstract submitted by a cardiothoracic surgery resident.

He also was on the Board of Directors of the National Resident Matching Program from 1998 to 2007, serving as president from 2001 to 2002. He was a member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery (1999-2005); the American College of Surgeons’ Graduate Medical Education Committee (1993-2001); and a member of the Committee on Graduate Education for the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (1992-2001).

In 1980, Dr. Wilcox spent time during a sabbatical at Royal Brompton National Heart and Lung Hospital in London, beginning a collaboration with Robert H. Anderson, M.D., a pediatric morphologist at Royal Brompton. After that visit, he and Dr. Anderson worked together on many research projects and publications, including the book Surgical Anatomy of the Heart (Raven Press, 3rd edition, 2004). The two physicians established a program that for many years enabled UNC cardiothoracic surgery residents to spend time in London studying with Dr. Anderson and attending rounds with him. Dr. Anderson also visited UNC.

Dr. Wilcox also was co-author of Atlas of the Heart (Gower Medical Publishing, 1988); and a co-editor of Diagnostic Atlas of the Heart (Raven Press, 1994). He was an author of more than 100 scientific and clinical articles that were published in medical journals.

After operating on many ill children, Dr. Wilcox had the idea of starting a support group for families of children who are undergoing heart surgery. The Carolina Parent Network, begun in 1986 and directed by Maggie Morris for many years, enables parents of children who are facing heart surgery at UNC to talk to parents who have already had the experience, and it also educates families about what to expect before, during and after surgery.

Dr. Wilcox loved history, especially medical history. As a medical student at UNC, he helped found the Bullitt Club for the study of the history of medicine. As a faculty member, he began collecting old and rare books about the history of medicine, particularly books about thoracic surgery and the specialties that preceded it. In 1984, he began presenting a rare book to the UNC Health Sciences Library each year in honor of his chief resident. In 1998 and 1999, he donated most of his medical book collection to the library. Since then the Benson Reid Wilcox Collection has grown to more than 1,400 books, journals, reprints and other items. He served on the board of visitors for the UNC Health Sciences Library.

"Dr. Wilcox' contributions to the historical collections at the Health Sciences Library were truly remarkable in both variety and scope. An avid and erudite bibliophile, he thrilled in the hunt for significant texts, and had a deep appreciation for the role of history in the theory and practice of medicine," said Daniel Smith, special collections librarian for the UNC Health Sciences Library.

Dr. Wilcox is survived by his wife, Patsy Davis, and by his four children: Adelaide W. King and her husband, Ruffin, of Charlottesville, Va.; Sandra W. Conway and her husband, Peter, of Charlotte, N.C.; Melissa W. Bond and her husband, Brett, of Charlotte; and Reid Wilcox and his wife, Suzanne, of Greensboro, N.C. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren, Alexandra and Ruffin King; Peter, Ben and Adelaide Conway; Brett, Lucinda and Reid Bond; and Ben, Henry and Ellie Wilcox. He is also survived by two stepdaughters, Harriet Kendall and Julia Klein; a brother, Bob Wilcox; two sisters-in-law, Dede Thompson and Louise Wilcox, and a brother-in-law Allan Davis. He was predeceased by his parents and by his brother Jim Wilcox.

A memorial service will be held Friday, May 14, at 2 p.m. in Gerrard Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gerrard Hall is on Cameron Avenue, across from the Old Well, between Memorial Hall and the South Building.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial gifts to the TSDA Benson R. Wilcox Award. Checks can be made to the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association and mailed to Michael R. Mill, M.D., Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, CB#7065, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7065.

Note: See related Carolina Curator posts: Dr. Benson Wilcox: Surgeon, Scholar, and Benefactor and A Hearty Valentine's Greeting.

Petition To Save the History of Medicine at University College London

As noted in an earlier Carolina Curator blog posting, the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine is slated to be closed. Currently an online petition that bears over 1300 signatures calls upon both University College London and the Wellcome Trust to reconsider this decision. The petition, entitled "Save History of Medicine at UCL," reads:

On March 31st the Wellcome Trust and UCL announced the closure of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine. This decision came in the middle of negotiations concerning the normal quinquennial review of funding for the Centre. The proposal to close the Centre was made by a handful of persons within the Wellcome Trust without, as far as is known, the involvement of any historian of medicine. We call upon the Trust to reconsider its decision, reinstate the independent peer review process, and permit any subsequent Centre to remain within the Wellcome building. We call upon UCL to maintain the history of medicine as a visible entity within College serving both historians and medics.

To view signatories or to add one's own signature, click here. The online petition was created by Professor Vivian Nutton at UCL, and is hosted at PetitionOnline.com.

April Is National Minority Health Month

April is National Minority Health Month. Check out the resources offered by the Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HSS), as well as the many health information guides for diverse population groups maintained by MedlinePlus at the National Library of Medicine.

OMH was established in 1986 by the HHS. It advises the Secretary and the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS) on public health program activities affecting minority groups within the United States. Resources are available online that recognize diverse heritages: Black History Month; Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month; Hispanic Heritage Month; and American Indian Heritage Month.

The OMH also maintains state offices of Minority and Multicultural Health. Contact information for all the state liaisons is available online, including the North Carolina liaison.

At the University of North Carolina, the Minority Health Project works to eliminate health disparities, and provides a guide to minority health-related activities at the university and elsewhere on its web site. In addition, NC Health Info, a service based at the UNC Health Sciences Library, provides much valuable health and medical information for minority groups, as well as links to local health services.

Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library also maintains a digital collection of Community Diagnosis Papers on public health concerns of diverse populations within the state, and is actively digitizing many historical North Carolina public health materials as part of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection, an NC ECHO grant-funded project. Additional resources on minority medical care, health and hygiene, among other topics, are discoverable via the online catalog.

Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine To Close

The Future of Medical History

International Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

The Wellcome Trust and University College London have decided to close the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine and initiate a two year wind down, without a quinquennial peer review. This marks the end of the Centre, and its prior incarnation of the Academic Unit of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.

The academic staff of the Centre will be hosting a three day international conference on the Future of Medical History, to take place on July 15-17, 2010 at Goodenough College in London. In keeping with the research of the Centre and former Institute, contributions will be welcome on all aspects of medical history. Papers will be limited to 20 minutes each.

Please send an abstract and contact details to Lauren Cracknell (l.cracknell@ucl.ac.uk) by June 1, 2010. Due to current circumstances, the Centre will not be able to cover the cost of travel or accommodation.

Further details will be available on the Centre website soon.

"Communities Thrive @ Your Library"

That's the theme for this year's National Library Week running from April 11 to 17, 2010. Sponsored annually by the American Libraries Association, National Library Week promotes libraries of all types: school, public, academic, and special. In conjunction with the week's celebration, the ALA released its annual report, The State of America's Libraries, which details many current trends, particularly the impact of the recession on the use and provision of library services across the United States.