{{Short description|Digital medical library}} {{Multiple issues| {{more citations needed|date=September 2014}}{{cleanup reorganize|date=October 2013}} }}
thumb|Absorption spectra chart from "Practical Organic and Biochemistry"The '''Medical Heritage Library''' ('''MHL''') was a digital curation collaborative among several medical libraries which promoted free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine. The MHL is digitized books and journals and worked to expand to the digitization of archival materials and still images. In 2010, the MHL began digitizing titles, mainly monographs, in a variety of medical history and related fields including chemistry, nursing, dentistry, audiology, physiology, psychology, psychiatry, biological science, hydrotherapy, weather, veterinary medicine, gardening, physical culture, and alternative medicine chosen for their scholarly, educational, and research value. Since the inception of the project, materials in audio and video formats have been added to the collection.
The Medical Heritage Library closed in 2024.<ref>{{cite web | title=An Announcement from the Medical Heritage Library, Inc. - Medical Heritage Library | url=https://www.medicalheritage.org/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250102045853/https://www.medicalheritage.org/ | archive-date=2 January 2025 }}</ref>
== Goals == The MHL goals were: # Develop an organizational structure that will ensure sustainability of MHL activities # Increase institutional membership to ensure rich content contributions and international coverage # Seek and exploit collaborative opportunities with users, creators, contributors, and peer digital libraries that further the MHL’s work # Develop methodologies and projects that measure the impact and evaluate the benefits of the Medical Heritage Library to the communities it serves # Develop and promote tools to enhance discovery and use of content by exposing linkages among the content across partner repositories and across formats # Develop means to match archaic medical terminology to current terminology in order to expose the relevance of medical historical content to current medical practice, teaching, and research # Develop access and content management strategies that align with one or more existing large-scale digital projects such as HathiTrust, the Digital Public Library of America and the Biodiversity Heritage Library # Incorporate preservation as a requirement for future content development # Continue to improve access to the collection # Provide leadership regarding access and privacy issues unique to medical content in order to enable access in compliance with applicable ethical, legal, and regulatory codes
== Library scope and history == The MHL maintained a [https://web.archive.org/web/20250102045853/https://www.medicalheritage.org/ blog], Twitter account, and Facebook page to interact with researchers, librarians, archivists, students, and the interested general public about the MHL collections, the history of medicine, digital humanities, and related topics.
The MHL began digitization of monographs in 2010 with an [https://web.archive.org/web/20140808045833/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Watermark-2010.pdf initial grant] from the Sloan Foundation. Work on the MHL project has continued with funding support from collaborating institutions, the National Endowment for the Humanities ([https://web.archive.org/web/20131023055811/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NEH-announcement.pdf announcement]), and the Mellon Foundation via a program administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources ([https://web.archive.org/web/20131023055136/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Countway-and-Hopkins-Receive-Mellon-Foundation-Grant.pdf announcement]). All digitized works are located at the [https://archive.org/details/medicalheritagelibrary Internet Archive].
The collection includes books, pamphlets, journals, and video and audio recordings in the history of medicine and related fields. A working list of [https://archive.org/browse.php?field=subject&mediatype=texts&collection=medicalheritagelibrary subject headings] is available here. Titles have been chosen for their scholarly, educational, and research value. The MHL consults with a volunteer group of scholars in the history of medicine and related fields and surveys its users regularly. As of August 2014, the collection consists of nearly 60,000 items including monographs, journals, audio and video on topics including surgery, public health, infectious diseases, gynecology, psychology, anatomy, neuroscience, tobacco, and homeopathy.
The MHL created a full-text search tool for use by researchers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mhl.countway.harvard.edu/search |title=Welcome to the Medical Heritage Library Search |website=Medical Heritage Library |access-date=August 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308000739/https://mhl.countway.harvard.edu/search/ |archive-date=March 8, 2022}}</ref> The tool allowed users to search the full-text of one or more items simultaneously.
The UK Medical Heritage Library started in 2014 with nine digitisation partners in England and Scotland, including [UCL] (University College London), the [University of Leeds], the [University of Glasgow], the [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine], [King's College London], and the [University of Bristol] - along with the libraries of the [Royal College of Physicians of London], the [Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh], and the [Royal College of Surgeons of England]. The original partnership is between the [Wellcome Library] and [Jisc]. Material digitized by the UK MHL project is also available through the MHL portal at the Internet Archive and searchable through the full-text search tool described above.
=== Members === Original members of the collaborative formed in 2010 are: * Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University * [http://www.collegeofphysicians.org/library/ College of Physicians of Philadelphia] * [http://historical.medicine.yale.edu/ Cushing/Whitney Medical Library] at Yale University * [http://www.countway.harvard.edu/index.html Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine] at Harvard University * National Library of Medicine * [http://www.nyam.org/library/ New York Academy of Medicine] * New York Public Library * [http://www.knowledgecommons.org/ Open Knowledge Commons] * [http://www.welch.jhu.edu/ Welch Medical Library, Library of the Institute of the History of Medicine], and the [http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/ Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions] * Wellcome Library
Content [http://www.medicalheritage.org/2011/08/new-contributors-sought/ contributors] have joined the project regularly since 2011; the MHL continues to seek additional content contributors. * [http://dentistry.library.utoronto.ca/dentistry-rare-books University of Toronto, Dentistry Library (Harry R. Abbott)] (2014) * [http://library.uic.edu/home/collections/manuscripts-and-rare-books University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences, Special Collections] (2014) * [https://weill.cornell.edu/archives/ Medical Center Archives of New York-Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell] (2013) * History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group (2013) * [http://health.library.emory.edu/ Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University] (2013) * [http://lts.brandeis.edu/research/archives-speccoll/index.html Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department], Brandeis University (2012) * [https://www.nihlibrary.nih.gov/ National Institutes of Health Library] (2012) * [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/ University of California, San Francisco Legacy Tobacco Documents Library] (2012) * [https://archive.org/details/wellcomefilm Wellcome Films] (2012) * [http://archive.hshsl.umaryland.edu/ Health Sciences and Human Services Library], University of Maryland, the Founding Campus (2012) * [http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=collections.archives.index Otis Historical Archives], National Museum of Health and Medicine (2012) * [http://matas.tulane.edu/ Rudolph Matas Health Sciences Library], Tulane University (2012) * [http://www.library.utoronto.ca/gerstein/index.html University of Toronto Gerstein Science Information Centre] (2012) * [http://library.umassmed.edu/ Lamar Soutter Library], University of Massachusetts Medical School (2011) * [https://library.mednet.iu.edu/history-of-medicine/about.html Ruth Lilly Medical Library], Indiana University School of Medicine (2022)
=== Timeline of the project === * 2010: MHL founded with grant (Medical Heritage Library Phase I) from the Sloan Foundation; initial digitization of medical history texts begins. * 2011: MHL awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Level One Start-up Grant. * 2012: MHL awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant ([https://web.archive.org/web/20131023055811/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NEH-announcement.pdf Expanding the Medical Heritage Library]) for digitizing historic American medical journals received from National Endowment for the Humanities. * 2012: MHL awarded a Mellon Foundation grant ([https://web.archive.org/web/20131023055136/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Countway-and-Hopkins-Receive-Mellon-Foundation-Grant.pdf Private Practices, Public Health]) for processing archival collections via the Council on Library and Information Science.
==References== {{reflist}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20140808045306/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Medical-Heritage-Library-Workplan_rev-12-10-2013-1.pdf Medical Heritage Library Workplan 2013-2014] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20140808045304/http://www.medicalheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/MHL_priorities_2014-15_Feb-14_r4.pdf Medical Heritage Library Priorities 2013-2014] * [https://www.livescience.com/47292-historic-medical-books-go-online.html 15 Million Pages of Historic Medical Books to Go Online], Live Science * [https://hms.harvard.edu/news/window-past Window to the Past: Countway Library preserving ancient medical texts] * [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/news/2014/aug/ucl-joins-wellcome-trusts-medical-heritage-library-digitised-books UCL joins the Wellcome Trust's Medical Heritage Library of digitised books] * {{cite journal|volume=107|issue=2|date=April 2019|author=Emily R. Novak Gustainis|title=Ever-evolving: introducing the Medical Heritage Library, Inc.|journal=Journal of the Medical Library Association |pages=265–269|doi=10.5195/jmla.2019.651|pmid=31019397|pmc=6466496}} * [https://ncph.org/history-at-work/medical-heritage-library Project Showcase: Exploring the Medical Heritage Library], National Council on Public History * [https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/tracts-and-pamphlets/ 21,500 tracts and pamphlets available to view online: UK Medical Heritage Library project], Royal College of Surgeons of England * [https://dp.la/news/nearly-60000-items-from-the-medical-heritage-library-now-available-in-dpla Nearly 60,000 items from the Medical Heritage Library now available in DPLA], Digital Public Library of America * [https://bshm.org.uk/uk-medical-heritage-library-free-line-resource-19c-published-work/ The UK Medical Heritage Library – a free on-line resource of 19C published work], British Society for the History of Medicine * [https://ariadne.hosting.lboro.ac.uk/issue/73/henshaw-et-al/ Automating Harvest and Ingest of the Medical Heritage Library], Ariadne * {{cite journal|last1=Findlay |first1=Peter |date=27 April 2018|volume=23|issue=2|pages=231–237|title=The UK Medical Heritage Library and the Relationship Between Print and the Digital|journal=Journal of Victorian Culture|doi=10.1093/jvcult/vcy021}}
==External links== * [http://www.medicalheritage.org/ Official website] * [https://www.neh.gov/divisions/preservation/featured-project/medicine-and-the-humanities-part-iii-medical-heritage Medicine and the Humanities. Part III: Medical Heritage Library] * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20140810093343/http://fictionreboot-dailydose.com/2013/03/06/the-daily-dose-presents-the-medical-heritagelibrary/ The Daily Dose Presents: The Medical Heritage Library]}} * [https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/02/04/making-a-medical-heritage-milestone/ Making a Medical Heritage Milestone]
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Category:Medical libraries Category:American digital libraries Category:History of medicine Category:Medical humanities Category:British digital libraries Category:Libraries established in 2010 Category:Internet properties established in 2010 Category:Libraries disestablished in the 2020s Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2024