An interdisciplinary collaboration between the Faculties of Arts and Medicine & Health at the University of Leeds
Aims
A key component of the Medical Humanities project at the University of Leeds is the development of History of Medicine and other MH resources across the University’s Libraries and Musuems. Under the leadership of Dr. Stella Butler, the University Librarian and a historian of medicine, the University Library, incorporating, on campus, the Brotherton, the Edward Boyle, and Health Sciences Libraries, together with the Library at St. James’s Hospital, is one of the foremost UK academic research libraries. A prominent member of Research Libraries UK, where Dr. Butler has recently been elected to the Board, five of its premier special research collections were awarded ‘Designated’ status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, in recognition of their outstanding international significance. The library holds nearly 3 million print and 500,000 online volumes and more than 37,000 print and online journals. Each year the library caters for over two million users who borrow approximately three million items. The development of the Library as one of the UK’s primary sites of Medical History and Humanities resources in the UK through a programme of work packages that involve both enhanced resource discovery and digitization is a vital part of this application, and will underpin the research that will take place on the project. It will make the resources more visible to researchers both within the University and beyond, and will engage the public with both the collections and their stories. A related initiative is the development of a new University Museum of History of Science, Technology and Medicine. Under the leadership of Dr. Claire Jones, the Director and a historian of medicine, the HSTM Museum has particularly strong holdings in medical and biomedical collections, and is developing a world-class, multisite, set of exhibitions showcasing, and making newly accessible, the University’s significant material holdings from scientific, technological and medical research and education.
Planned Developments