2018 Annual Meeting and Speaker Program

Location

The Section's annual meeting will include discussion of ongoing projects and future plans. The program will also feature presentations about diverse topics related to STEM collecting, access, teaching, and research. 

Presenter: Lindsay Anderberg, Interdisciplinary Science & Technology Librarian and Poly Archivist, Bern Dibner Library, New York University

Topic: Humanities for STEM: Getting a grant, creating a research collaborative, and organizing a symposium around STEM archives

Abstract: This presentation will be a review of my experiences as the co-PI for the research collaborative Humanities for STEM: Using archives to bridge the two cultures divide (https://wp.nyu.edu/archives_collaborative/) and the ensuing Humanities for STEM Symposium.  Since some STHC section members presented at this conference, part of the presentation will be a reporting out of this activity and an overview of other science archives projects.  But, I will also talk about my experience of securing the grant, how we designed the research collaborative as a way to investigate and advocate for STEM archives, and the process of organizing a multidisciplinary symposium.  Hopefully my experiences will inspire other archivists towards similar projects and collaborations.

Presenter: Dawne Lucas, UNC-Chapel Hill

Topic: International medical theses project

Abstract: In 2004, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Health Sciences Library acquired approximately 200,000 international medical theses from the New York Academy of Medicine, with the provision that UNC would make them accessible to researchers. The collection consists of post-1801 theses in multiple languages from leading medical schools throughout the world. Europe is well-represented, with many theses originating from universities in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Countries with lesser quantities in the collection include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Algeria, Indonesia, and others. Useful for anyone interested in tracing the development of clinical and scientific inquiry in medical schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the collection is also notable for providing a record of the entry of women into the profession of medicine. Women denied entrance into American medical schools, for instance, sometimes turned to Europe for a chance to pursue their studies. One such pioneer is Dr. Susan J. Dimock, who was born in 1847 in Washington, North Carolina. Rejected at Harvard, she was subsequently admitted to the University of Zürich and completed her medical degree in 1871 with a defense of her dissertation on the various forms of puerperal (or "childbed") fever that she observed in Zürich maternity clinics. Scholars studying the humanities will also find the collection useful for analyzing the evolution of languages, customs, and social mores in a given country or region. Processing such a large collection was challenging, requiring much out-of-the-box thinking. This lightning talk will address how the library chose to process and promote this fascinating collection highlighting almost 200 years of medical education worldwide.

Presenter: Alison Oswald, Archivist, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution Archives Center

Topic: Documenting the History of Invention and Innovation and the work of inventors

Abstract: Alison Oswald, archivist and Joyce Bedi, senior historian, discuss their collaborative work to document contemporary invention and innovation through collecting primary documents and associated artifacts, conducting oral histories, and developing exhibitions and public programs at the National Museum of American History. Using collecting case studies and rotating exhibition themes for the Lemelson Center’s Inventive Minds Exhibition Gallery and the Inventive Minds playlist on YouTube, the speakers will address how they share the stories of invention with the public and the challenges in documenting women and immigrant inventors, and inventors from minority backgrounds.

Presenter: John Rees, Archives & Modern Manuscripts Program, Archivist and Digital Resources Manager, National Library of Medicine

Topic: National Library of Medicine Web Archiving

Abstract: NLM’s Archives and Modern Manuscripts Program recently began leveraging our Archive It web crawling infrastructure to preserve web content and augment our physical collections. I will discuss our motivations, lightweight selection paradigm, and technical implementation details.