UAB's Anesthesiology Library 1980-2015

From August 1983 until December 2015 I worked as librarian for the Anesthesiology Department in the University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Medicine. The library originated in the late 1970's as a reading room on the seventh floor of Jefferson Tower maintained by secretary Patsy Byrd. In May 1980 the department hired a full time librarian, Beth Owens, and soon after the library moved to the fifth floor of the Kracke Clinical Services Building along with chairman and faculty offices. Ann Hester became librarian in October 1981, and the library collection expanded under her tenure. Emma O'Hagan is the current librarian.

For some years this description of the library appeared in the Directory of History of Medicine Collections maintained by the National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine Division:



"This library exists primarily to serve the faculty, residents, and staff of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Anesthesiology. However, others are welcome to use materials in-house. The library provides reference services and will photocopy from its collections. Interlibrary Loan services are available; the library is a DOCLINE participant. 

The library holds more than 3,000 monographs, 500 audio and video tapes, 1,700 bound journal volumes, and many items of ephemera (company literature, organizational publications, etc.). The collection includes more than 200 pre-1970 monographs related to anesthesia and pain management, more than 100 monographs related to the history of anesthesia and pain (secondary literature), and numerous subject and individual files related to anesthesia and pain history. Inventories available online: journal holdings, CD & DVD holdings, and historical files.

Collection Subject Strengths: History of Anesthesiology and Anesthesia;
History of Pain Management"

Serving the clinical information needs of departmental faculty, residents and staff
is the primary purpose of the library. A reconfiguration of the facility took
place in 2014 and 2015. Space was reduced, the journal collection removed
and new computer terminals added. Some of the historical books went to the
Reynolds-Finley Historical Library, and historical files related to departmental
history were accepted by UAB Archives. 

The following photos show the library during its "print" days and as materials were
boxed for removal. I've made comments below some of the pictures.

Departmental libraries have been a feature of colleges and universities around
the world since the late 19th century. At the end of this post I've included a
brief bibliography of some of the literature available on the topic. Such libraries
appeared not only in medical departments, but the humanities and sciences as
well. 

In 1994 Bronte Moran at the Department of Surgery Library, University of
Wisconsin-Madison did a survey of medical departmental libraries in the U.S.,
which was published two years later. He found a total of 24, with only 2 in
anesthesiology. Due to costs and the changing information landscape over the
past two decades, I would imagine many of those two dozen no longer exist.
Departmental libraries in other academic areas are probably also very rare
these days. 

Most of the books seen here pertained to the history of anesthesia, pain medicine, and critical care medicine as well as the history of medicine generally.

Yes, the library still had its card catalog. 

This photo and the two below it show some of the main book collection. 

The library became more crowded as space was reduced. 

Looking through the big door you can barely see the door to my office on the left of the small table. 

A portion of the journal collection is shown in these two photographs.

Another view of some of the journals and the big table. 

This bookplate was used in library books for many years and featured the department's logo, also in use for a number of years.

In the photos below the library contents are being packed up and finally the library is completely empty. My understanding was that books would return and journals would not. No matter what happened, the library no longer exists as I knew it for so many years. But the new facility will continue to serve the department's contemporary needs.

Here I am in the summer of 1983 in the library on Kracke 5.



Constructed in 1928 as a student nursing dormitory for Hillman Hospital, the building was renovated and opened as the Roy R. Kracke Clinical Services Building in 1965. The Anesthesiology Department Library was on the fifth floor of this building until 1993. 

Source of photo: Holmes, History of the University of Alabama Hospitals [1974]

This aerial view of Jefferson Tower from 1945 also shows the Kracke Building on the right. The front of Jefferson Tower looks very different today.
Source: BhamWiki

SOME REFERENCES ON DEPARTMENTAL LIBRARIES

Kasses, Carol D. et al. Departmental libraries: curse or blessing? Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1978 April; 66(2): 177-184

Moran, Bronte. The role of the medical departmental library. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1996 January; 84(1): 25-31

Stefanacci, Michal A. et al. Departmental libraries: why do they exist? Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1977 October; 65(4): 433-437

Stokes, Janet H. et al. The Dripps Library of Anesthesia University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Anesthesia History Association Newsletter 1992 January; 10(1): 13

Thompson, Lawrence. The historical background of departmental and collegiate libraries. Library Quarterly 1942 January; 12: 49-74

Alabama Library Bookmarks

Back in October 2014 I posted a piece on "Bookmarks for Some Alabama Bookstores" featuring items from my collection. This time I'll share some bookmarks I have from Alabama libraries.

Most of these examples come from public or academic libraries. I've also included one from a museum and another from the Encyclopedia of Alabama. I've scanned both sides unless one side was blank. 

Bookmarks have been widely used by libraries since they are an inexpensive way to advertise services, hours, new programs and so forth. I suppose they may not be used as much these days, since the same information can be put on a web site or Facebook page. 

Bookmark histories can be found here and here.

The Alabama Public Library Service is a state agency supporting public libraries across Alabama.

Bailey Cove is one of the many branches of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library.

The Alabama Virtual Library provides online database access to residents of the state. 

The Encyclopedia of Alabama is not a library, but it's such a wonderful resource that I wanted to include it here.

Alabama Library History: Woodlawn in 1949

Women and their clubs have been very important to the development of public libraries in America. In a paper written in graduate school I explored this truth as exemplified by the efforts to organize a public library in Union Springs, Alabama, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  

I recently came across the 1949 newspaper item below and thought I would share it on this blog, since one of my ongoing topics is Alabama library history. The piece notes efforts to showcase the Birmingham Public Library and its campaign for a new building for the Woodlawn branch before the members of the Woman's Club of Birmingham. 

In the segregated city of 1949, this club was no doubt made up of white women. African-American women in Alabama had their clubs as well.

The Birmingham Public Library web site gives this brief history of the Woodlawn branch, the system's first: 

"The Woodlawn Branch Library had its beginning in 1904 when a group of club women bought a few books and started a library at the home of Mrs. J. B. Gibson. On February 27, 1905, the library was moved to the business area and opened to the public. It was presented to the city of Woodlawn on March 7, 1905 by the club women. Woodlawn became a part of Birmingham in 1910. In 1911 the library was presented to the City of Birmingham to become the first branch library in the city system."

Birmingham Age-Herald 27 October 1949

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Two Early Medical Libraries in Birmingham

In March 2014 I wrote a post on "Alabama Libraries in 1886 and 1897" that described libraries found in the state in surveys done by the U.S. Bureau of Education. That 1886 survey found three medical libraries in Alabama. The largest was at the State Board of Health in Montgomery with 3000 volumes. The Pierson Libary at the Alabama Insane Hospital [later Bryce] had some 1500 books, and the Medical College of Alabama in Mobile had 500.

In this post I want to briefly discuss two medical libraries in Birmingham in the first decade of the 20th century. Comments are below. Today there are a few more medical libraries in the state, primarily at hospitals and academic medical centers. Since 1980 the Alabama Health Libraries Association has served those facilities.

Alabama Medical Journal October 1901 Volume 13 number 11

This item announces the intent to organize a medical library for Birmingham physicians. As items below indicate, efforts quickly began and a library association continued meeting until at least 1908.

George Summers Brown, M.D. [1860-1913]

Source: Holley, History of Medicine in Alabama

According to the article above, Brown was the "prime mover" in the effort to organize a medical library for the county society. As the item below notes, the idea quickly morphed into the impressive-sounding Birmingham Medical Library Association. Brown taught obstetrics at the Birmingham Medical College.

Alabama Medical Journal November 1901 Volume 13 Number 12

Alabama Medical Journal September 1908 Volume 20 Number 10

This 1908 meeting report indicates that the library association meetings were much like the county and state medical society ones--a chance to exchange some clinical information, eat good food and socialize. The Dr. E.M. Prince mentioned was a founder and surgeon for a number of years at South Highlands Infirmary [now UAB Highlands]. Prince published numerous articles before World War I and some indicated the presence of Dr. James Robertson Dawson as the physician giving anesthesia for his cases. 

That 1908 volume of the Alabama Medical Journal contains two letters to the Birmingham Medical Library Association from local physician Dr. H.S. Ward reporting on his visits to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and London, England. The first letter was read at the December 1907 meeting of the Association. In closing his second letter, Dr. Ward expresses the hope that "some day our own medical library association may be in a home of its own." 

I'll have to do some more research to determine how long this association met and if a library ever really developed and what eventually happened to it if it did. The list of names above in the original announcement indicates that a large cross-section of the county society's members at least wanted themselves associated with this project.

The second example is the private library belonging to a physician who practiced for a number of years in Birmingham, Dr. John Clark LeGrande. You'll note that he served as president of the library association organized in 1901. 

LeGrande taught hygiene and medical law at the Birmingham Medical College. He was the founding editor of the Alabama Medical and Surgical Age which was published from 1889 until 1911. LeGrande was also one of the individuals who helped furnish Hillman Hospital when the permanent brick building opened in July 1903; his contributions outfitted the obstetrical ward. 

LeGrande died in March 1906 and his personal medical library was offered for sale. The John Daniel Sinkler Davis named in the notice below had also practiced medicine in Birmingham for many years. An 1879 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, Davis was the older brother of William Elias B. Davis, one of Alabama's most prominent physicians of his time period. LeGrande's "magnificent" personal library must have been impressive for its day.

Alabama Medical Journal April 1907 Volume 19, number 5 page 252

John Clark LeGrande, M.D.

Source: Holley, History of Medicine in Alabama

This page is from Jefferson County Probate records pertaining to Dr. John Clark LeGrande and dated April 7, 1906, just over two weeks after his death. As noted, he died without a will and the list of his "real and personal estate" included a "medical library." Family members probably asked Dr. J.D.S. Davis to handle the sale of the collection.