HSL Special Collections and Social Media

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Note: The image above was created using the image utility at Wordle.

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.

Five Centuries of North Carolina Maps Now Online

More than 3,200 historic maps of North Carolina are now available online as part of the digital North Carolina Maps project, set to be completed June 30, 2010

Visitors to the North Carolina Maps site can see the results of a three-year collaborative project to identify and scan nearly every original map of the state published from 1584 to 1923. The collection also contains maps of every North Carolina county and maps published by the state through the year 2000.

The North Carolina Collection in the Wilson Special Collections Library collaborated to produce the new site with the North Carolina State Archives and the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo. The UNC Library and the State Archives scanned the maps, and the Library hosts and administers the site.

Read more . . . .

North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is a new, statewide digitization and digital publishing program housed in the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Center operates in conjunction with the State Library of North Carolina's NC ECHO (North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) project. It is supported by the State Library of North Carolina with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.

There are several projects currently available at the Center's website:

:: North Carolina College and University Yearbooks. Images and full-text searching are available for student yearbooks from several schools, including Appalachian State, Elon, Elizabeth City State, East Carolina, Meredith College, Louisburg College, UNC-Greensboro, and UNC-Chapel Hill. There will be many more schools added soon.

:: Images of North Carolina. This collection features images of original materials from a variety of institutions, including the Orange County Historical Museum, the Sallie Mae Ligon Museum and Archives at the Masonic Home for Children in Oxford, and UNC-Chapel Hill.

:: Durham Urban Renewal Records. Records from the Durham County Library documenting the urban redevelopment of Durham in the 1960s and 1970s.

:: Digital Davie. Historic photographs from the Davie County Public Library documenting people and places in Davie County.

:: Wilson County's Greatest Generation: The Memories of the World War II Veterans of Wilson County, N.C. This collection was compiled by the Wilson County Historical Society and consists of photographs, documents, and personal recollections of many of the men and women from Wilson County who served in World War II.

Visit often, as new materials are being added to all of these projects on a regular basis. We will also continue to develop new projects, and look forward to working with more libraries, archives, and museums around the state to share their resources online.

Please feel free to contact Nicholas Graham, Program Coordinator, with any questions (ngraham@unc.edu or 919-962-4836).

NCpedia Seeking Contributors

The State Library of North Carolina is looking for authors for our growing NCpedia – our online encyclopedia. We are unable to offer payment for this work, but are able to offer by-lines and appreciation!

We are starting with broad, overview articles. Topics will get narrower and narrower as the project moves forward and the NCpedia grows. For instance, a broad, overview article may be on pottery in the state as well as its current status. After those overview articles are added, we’ll look for authors to write entries that provide more detail on time periods and/or narrower topics mentioned in the initial overview article.

Anyone interested in contributing is encouraged to peruse the NCpedia and contact Michelle Czaikowski, Digital Projects Manager for the State Library with the topic on which you are interested in writing, even if the topic is still listed on our list of "Topics Needed." This will insure there is no duplication. (We don't want anyone to go through the effort of writing an article on a topic already fully covered!)

Entries may vary in length between 500 - 2000 words depending on the topic. Further details on format required for submissions is available online.

Interested in learning more about the NCpedia? Click here!

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.

2010 North Carolina History Day Contest

North Carolina History Day is a program designed to promote interest in history among students and to assist teachers in teaching history more effectively. The program will help students develop skills in historical research, analysis, critical thinking, organization, and presentation, as well as improve reading and writing skills. Students use these skills to design an exhibit, write a paper, produce a documentary, create a performance, or develop a web site centered around the annual theme. The History Day program also provides teachers with curriculum materials and training opportunities.

At district, state, and national history competitions judges review the students' work and provide constructive comments. In North Carolina, the state contest is administered by the Office of Archives and History with substantial assistance from the Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies. National History Day in North Carolina is affiliated with National History Day.

The State History Day Contest will be held on April 24, 2010 in Raleigh. The National Contest will be held June 13-17, 2010 in College Park, Maryland. For more information, visit the North Carolina History Day web site.

Book Event for New Biography on Hugh Williamson [1735-1819]

The Bullitt History of Medicine Club will be hosting a book event for Dr. George Sheldon, author of the first full-length biography of Hugh Williamson [1735-1819], an illustrious figure in both American and North Carolina history. Entitled Hugh Williamson: Physician, Patriot, and Founding Father, the book recounts the remarkable life of Williamson, who among many other accomplishments was a signer of the U.S. Constitution.

The event will begin at 5:30pm on Thursday, April 15, 2010 in the 5th Floor Conference Room (527) at the UNC Health Sciences Library. Dr. Sheldon will make a brief presentation and entertain questions on Williamson's place in history. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Light refreshments will be served and all are welcome. In addition, a small display will be on view in the exhibition cases on the first floor of HSL.

Dr. Sheldon is the Zack D. Owens Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the Director of the Health Policy Research Institute of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and Editor-in-Chief of e-FACS.org, the web portal of ACS. From 1984-2001 he served as Chair of the Department of Surgery at UNC.

See related post: New Biography on Hugh Williamson, Physician and Patriot.

Anesthesia History Association to Meet in North Carolina

The Anesthesia History Association (AHA), in conjunction with the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, will be holding its 16th Annual Meeting on April 8-10, 2010, at the Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The featured speaker will be Dr. K. Patrick Ober, Professor of Internal Medicine at Wake Forest University and author of Mark Twain and Medicine: "Any Mummery Will Cure."

Annual meetings are held in various parts of the United States, and a brief interim meeting and dinner is held annually during the ASA Annual Meeting. Annual Meeting programs include plenary sessions devoted to targeted subject relative to anesthesia history or the teaching of history. "Free Papers" are devoted to historical events, trends, biography, etc related to medicine and to anesthesia.

This year's meeting will begin on Thursday, April 8, with a tour of Old Salem and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. The educational sessions will begin at 8 a.m. on Friday and conclude at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Additional information regarding the 2010 AHA spring meeting is available from Robert Strickland, M.D., rastrick@wfubmc.edu, (336) 716-4498, or Sherri Stockner, sstockne@wfubmc.edu, (336) 716-2712; the AHA web site also provides further information.

New Biography on Hugh Williamson, Physician and Patriot

Dr. George Sheldon, Professor of Surgery and Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has just completed the first full-length biography of Hugh Williamson [1735-1819], an illustrious figure in both American and North Carolina history. Hugh Williamson: Physician, Patriot, and Founding Father recounts the remarkable life of Williamson, who not only was a signer of the US Constitution, but also a polymath who was a member of the University of Pennsylvania's first graduating class, and later studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and trained with the renowned surgeon, John Hunter.

A member of the American Philosophical Society, Williamson was politically engaged as well. He was among the planners of the Boston Tea Party, and later became the surgeon general of the North Carolina Revolutionary War Militia. In 1782, Williamson was elected to the North Carolina legislature, and was chosen to serve in the Continental Congress, where he advocated for federalism; on September 17, 1787, he was one of the signers of the Constitution. Later he served in the first US House of Representatives, and was one of the original trustees of the University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the country.

Published by Humanity Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books, Hugh Williamson has already garnered praise from reviewers:

No longer can we claim that Dr. Hugh Williamson, a signer of the Constitution, is one of our least known Founding Fathers. Dr. Sheldon's wide-ranging biography clearly reveals the political, educational, and philanthropic activities in which this typical Enlightenment figure played significant roles.

-- Gert H. Brieger, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Physician, surgeon, scientist, rebel, sometime spy, politician, and distinguished Founding Father--Hugh Williamson was all these and more. In this fascinating account of Williamson's multifaceted career, Dr. Sheldon . . . has brought a great American patriot to life, and made him unforgettable.

-- Sherwin Nuland, MD, FACS, Yale University School of Medicine

. . . Sheldon has provided [his readers] with a complete, informative, and satisfying "dissection" of a unique, multifaceted life. There is a parallelism between the author and Williamson in that both are recognized, particularly, for their contributions to their adopted state of North Carolina.

-- Seymour I. Schwartz, MD, University of Rochester School of Medicine

Dr. Sheldon is the Zack D. Owens Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the Director of the Health Policy Research Institute of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and Editor-in-Chief of e-FACS.org, the web portal of ACS. From 1984-2001 he served as Chair of the Department of Surgery at UNC.

North Carolina's Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law

As of January 2, 2010, North Carolina's Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law (S.L. 2009-27 (G.S. 130A-496)) requires restaurants, bars, and many lodging establishments to be smoke-free. The web site SmokeFreeNC.gov provides information on the law and rules for enforcement; frequently asked questions; tools for businesses; educational materials; secondhand smoke; quitting tobacco use; contact information for local health departments; complaint forms for reporting violations and a complaint log; and a form for submitting thank you's.

North Carolina Newspapers Digitization Project

The North Carolina State Archives has recently completed the North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project, which now makes available papers that were previously only available on microfilm. The online collection can be browsed or searched by keyword, year, or newspaper title; an advanced search is also available. Several lesson plans for teachers have been provided through a collaboration with Learn NC. The newspapers in the collection range from the earliest paper published in North Carolina, the North Carolina Gazette in 1751, to the 1890s, and includes titles from the following cities: Edenton (1787-1801), Fayetteville (1798-1795), Hillsboro (1786), New Bern (1751-1804), Salisbury (1799-1898), and Wilmington (1765-1816).

Newspapers document a wide range of social, political, and cultural events, and the North Carolina collection is no exception. Among the 23,483 images currently digitized can be found many topics related to medicine and the history of health. For example, a search on malaria yields 438 items; cancer, 295 items; consumption, 1283 items; syphilis, 119 items; mesmerism, 15 items; and headache, 943 items.

The project was funded by an LSTA grant provided by the State Library of North Carolina, and provides a valuable historical resource for the state.

Note: The newspaper pictured above is the Wilmington Gazette, from November 6, 1800.

Student Essay Contest in North Carolina History

The North Carolina Museum of History is accepting entries for the 2010 Fourth Annual Student Essay Contest for undergraduate and graduate students. A prize of $200 will be awarded for the best research paper about North Carolina history. Judging will be based on historical accuracy, quality of written communication, and contribution to the field of local history. The winning essayist must be willing to present a lecture at noon on May 12, 2010, during History à la Carte, an informal lunchtime program held each month.

All contest submissions (including cover page) must be e-mailed as a Word or PDF attachment. Send submissions to contest coordinator, Rachel Dickens, at rachel.dickens@ncdcr.gov, by midnight on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010.

All papers must be 15 to 20 double-spaced pages (including footnotes and bibliography), prepared with 1-inch margins and typed in 12-point font. A cover page with the following information must be attached to the submission: title, student’s name, abstract of 100 to 150 words, college affiliation, educational status (undergraduate class year or graduate level), mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. The student’s name should not appear on the paper, as the essays will be judged through a double-blind review process by a panel of three judges in the history and public history fields.

For additional details, call Dickens at 919-807-7969. For more information about the N.C. Museum of History, call 919-807-7900.

Susan Dimock and the Company She Kept

Dr. Elizabeth Barthold Dreesen, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at UNC-CH, will be presenting a James A. Hutchins Lecture on "Susan Dimock and the Company She Kept," on Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 4:00pm - 5:30pm in the Royall Room at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center on the UNC Campus. The Hutchins Lecture series is sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South.

Washington, North Carolina native Susan Dimock became the first woman member of the North Carolina Medical Society in 1872. When she died three years later at age 28, she was already a well-respected surgeon, author and medical educator. She merited a New York Times obituary and pallbearers drawn from the luminaries of Harvard Medical School.

Dimock's life was one of liminality--a Southerner who moved to Massachusetts in the middle of the Civil War, an American student in a Swiss medical school, a woman surgeon in orthodox male medicine. Dreesen's exploration of Dimock's life sheds light on women's education in antebellum North Carolina, the entry of women into medicine, and the rise of nursing education, public health, and anti-sepsis procedures.

Note: Additional information on Dimock, as well as her dissertation on puerperal fever, written in German, is available online as part of the International Theses Collection at the UNC Health Sciences Library.

For further information on the event, contact Lisa Beavers (919-962-0503) at the Center for the Study of the American South.

Public Service Announcement for NC Health Info

Designed to meet the needs and interests of North Carolinians, NC Health Info is an online guide to thousands of web sites of quality health and medical information and local health services throughout North Carolina. It was also the first resource of its kind to link local health information with corresponding information from MedlinePlus, the consumer health site maintained by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

NC Health Info informational flyers in English and Spanish are available in the "Community" section of the UNC Health Science Library's online exhibition on public health.

NC Health Info is created, housed, and maintained by the project staff at the UNC Health Sciences Library, and is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Celebrating the North Carolina Record

As archives throughout the nation celebrate American Archives Month in October, the North Carolina State Archives offers programs and activities reflecting our state theme, “Celebrating the North Carolina Record,” during North Carolina Archives Week, October 19-25, 2009. All activities are FREE and will take place in the North Carolina State Archives Building, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601.

:: Home Movie Day
Saturday, October 17; 1:00 p.m.—4:00 p.m.
Location: State Archives Building, Auditorium, 1st Floor
Home Movie Day is a celebration of amateur home movies created by individuals, families, or groups. Join us in Raleigh to view the movies that reflect our own cultural perceptions. Bring your own family films to share (8mm, super8 and 16mm—sorry, no video). Sponsored bythe State Archives, North Carolina State University Film Studies Program, and A/V Geeks.

:: Exhibit: “Extraordinary People in Ordinary Documents and Treasures of the State Archives”
Monday, October 19; 10:00 a.m.—1:00 p.m.
Location: State Archives Building, Archives Search Room, 2nd Floor
View on ordinary public documents the names of those North Carolinians who would go on to do extraordinary things. This exhibit alsofeatures a page from the original 1663 North Carolina Charter, North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights, postcards, letters, and historic photographs. The Tar Heel Family, will play on a continuous loop. This black and white film, ca. 1954, depicts North Carolina’s transition froman agrarian economy an industrialized one.

:: Presentation: “North Carolina Maps: From the 16th to the 21st Century”
Tuesday, October 20; 10:00 a.m.—11:00 a.m.
Location: State Archives Building, Room 308, 3rd Floor
View an online demonstration of some of our oldest and rarest maps and the ways we are preserving current geospatial data for legal, fiscal,analytical, and historic purposes.

:: Presentation: “The New Manuscript and Archives Reference System (MARS): Online Access to State Archives Records”
Wednesday, October 21; 10:00 a.m.—11:00 a.m.
Location: State Archives Building, Room 208, 2nd Floor
Many people now perform research from the convenience of the home laptop. What historic North Carolina documents are available through the Internet? The State Archives staff will present a hands-on demonstration of how to search the newly revised catalog to discover and locate the types of records in our collections. The new Web interface links to images of over 50,000 documents.

:: Presentation: “Managing and Accessing Your Digital Images”
Thursday, October 22; 10:00 a.m.—11:00 a.m.
Location: State Archives Building, Room 308, 3rd FloorState
Archives staff will demonstrate best practices for naming and retrieving your collections of digital photographs, documents, and otherimages.

For a fuller description of our activities and events, visit the North Carolina State Archives web site.

Grants Awarded to HSL for Digital Initiatives

Note: See June 21, 2010 blog post for announcement of second year NC ECHO award for $42,675.

The UNC Health Sciences Library has just been awarded $34,850 for the first year of a $94,050 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 Collection will contain over 800 volumes (approx. 300,000 pages) of core journals in medicine, public health, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing from 1849 to 1977.

These materials document the development of health care and the health professions and are thus a significant part of the state’s cultural heritage and history. The digital library will be keyword searchable and browseable, and will provide consolidated online access to materials that are currently difficult for students, researchers, and the public to find and utilize in print. The digital library will also provide historical context for the digital resources and K-12 educational materials for selected content. Daniel Smith, Special Collections Librarian, is the principal investigator and project manager, and will coordinate each phase of the grant.

HSL and the University Library were also successful in obtaining other grant funding from the State Library. HSL's NC Health Info was awarded $54,057 for its consumer health portal, and the University Library received several awards:

:: "Ensuring Democracy Through Digital Access," a collaborative project between ECU's Joyner Library, the State Library of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library, was awarded $124,693 for year one of a two-year project.

:: "Driving Through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina," a project of Wilson Library, received $74,553 for year one of a two-year project.

:: "Creating Online Access to Legacy Finding Aids," a project of Wilson Library, received $73,695 for year two of a three-year project.

:: "North Carolina Maps," a collaborative project of the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library, the North Carolina State Archives, and the Outer Banks History Center, received $144,284 for year three of a three-year project.

The State Library's support will go far to develop and enhance UNC's digital collections for the use of researchers everywhere. A list of all grant awards for 2009-10 is available online. 185 projects were approved for a total of $4,717,109. These awards are made possible by LSTA grant funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a federal grant-making agency. Congratulations to everyone!

Note: The images below are from the Health Bulletin of the North Carolina State Board of Health.