Happy Archives Month!

by Matt Richardson, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian

Did you know that October is American Archives Month? On top of that, it’s also National Medical Librarians Month!

On October 13, the McGovern Historical Collections and Research Center joined the larger archives community on Twitter in celebration of #AskAnArchivist Day. We also took to the streets–ok, maybe it was the main TMC Library–to spread the good word and invite folks to #AskAnArchivist their questions in person.

To connect archives to today’s experiences, we thought current medical students (and librarians!) might be interested in getting a glimpse into how their predecessors lived and studied. That’s why, for our in-person event at the TMC Library, we brought along yearbooks from the University of Texas Medical School Records and the Baylor College of Medicine Records. We also featured a 1918 Yearbook for the Baptist Sanitarium and Hospital Training School for Nurses from the Leta Denham, RN Papers.

The McGovern Historical Center preserves materials in a variety of formats and covering a wide range of medical history beyond these twentieth century paper records. To that end, we brought along a highlight reel of digitized audiovisual materials, as well as our six-foot Andreas Vesalius reproduction.

Of course, we’re happy to take your questions anytime, and we have lots of options for connecting with us. You can contact us to ask a question or schedule a research appointment. Maybe you’re interested in contributing to the archives by donating historical materials or through financial support. And we certainly wouldn’t mind if you wanted to follow @McGovernHRC on our blog The Black Bag, as well as Twitter, Facebook, and our newly-launched Instagram account.