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Dental Decks

by Philip Montgomery This Dental Deck for the NDB exam appeared at the Texas Medical Center Library’s book drop. Staff on the circulation desk called the McGovern Historical Center and offered us the deck. We snapped it up. It is a curious set of flashcard. In my mind flash cards are something I used in […]

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Trials of Trowels

by Philip Montgomery, archivist One of our volunteers found two trowels in a cabinet. The trowels are in excellent shape and relatively unused. I suppose they were used for the laying of a cornerstone or some masonry project related to a new construction. These trowels reside in the TMC Library’s McGovern Historical Collections without historical […]

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Pulling Teeth from the Man of Steel

by Philip Montgomery, archivist I want to be perfectly clear at the beginning of this post that being an archivist is a tough job. I can’t even begin to describe the trials that come with being an archivist. You have your dirt, your mold, your sneezing, your cold temperatures, your silverfish, your 50 year-old hypodermics, […]

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Back in the saddle

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu Figuratively, if not literally. Actually, we do have a saddle here at the McGovern Historical Research Center.  It came with the Methodist Hospital collection, although nobody at Methodist could tell Elizabeth White, at the time it was donated, what was significant about it.  They simply insisted it went with […]

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Air and Rail, 1944

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu Guess what? Ephemera! I found a new cache this week and it’s too beautiful not to share.  The following come from a series of items related to the early days of the newly-founded Texas Medical Center, when the M.D. Anderson Foundation had development grants and was looking for ways […]

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The Archival Chamber of Horrors

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu I have a different kind of scary blog post for you this week.  Well, it’s scary if you’re an archivist. Phil Montgomery, the archivist, and I do a lot of different things here, but when people ask me what I do most of the time, I tell them I […]

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Jones Motor Basal metabolism tester, 1937

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu I am easily distracted by shiny objects. There is more to an archive than books and professional papers.  I’m a bit of a pop culture aficionado, as I’m sure our readers can tell from past blog posts: I love ephemera[1]–the postcards, advertising, commercial packaging. I also love the realia[2]. […]

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Surviv-A-Life Resuscitator

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu I’ve noted several times that mystery objects are a common part of our jobs (there wouldn’t be Thingamjigs without them!). Last week, our couriers arrived bright and early in the morning with an armload of returned books, newsletters to be stored away for safekeeping, and this: I had not […]

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Public Health and Christmas Seals

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu You know I never pass up an opportunity to scan something. We received an image request early this week that sent me scurrying off to look into Institutional Collection 34, the San Jacinto Lung Association[1], a collection with which I had never before had occasion to work.  Oh, my.  […]

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Thingamajig follow-up

by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu It looks as though the verdict is still out on last week’s Thingamajig.  Suggestions have included rib cutters, a very small bottle opener, and tonsil guillotines.  Tonsil guillotines strike me as a good guess but I think these might be a bit small even for those. One of the […]

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