OTIS HISTORICAL ARCHIVES 2009 annual report
STAFF:
Michael Rhode, Chief Archivist
Kathleen Stocker, Assistant Archivist
(A) Jasmine High, Archives Technician
Donna Rose, IMC Supervisor Archivist
Amanda Montgomery, IMC Contract Archivist
Johanna Medlin, IMC Contract Archivist
Emilia Garvey, IMC Contract Archivist
LaFonda Burwell, IMC Contract Archives Technician
Karen West, IMC Contract Archives Technician
Anna Korosec, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(A) Erissa Mann, student volunteer
Substantial requests for information were handled, frequently regarding sensitive topics. Of the requests that we tracked, we had at least 170 substantial reference requests this year, including from six countries outside the US. Rhode was interviewed by Alexis Madrigal for "Rare Trove of Army Medical Photos Heads to Flickr," Wired's Science blog and "Death Mask," a History Channel television documentary on Abraham Lincoln, and spoke on "The Army Medical Museum in World War I," American Association for the History of Medicine and "Graphic Tales of Cancer in America," History of Science Society (November 22 2009). Rhode and Stocker helped write the book Walter Reed Army Medical Center Centennial: A Pictorial History, 1909-2009. In addition to providing scans of photographs of the base and personnel, they also wrote captions while contributing to the layout and editing of the publication. The book featured many photographs from the Archives, but also new pictures of the base that Stocker took. Stocker and Rhode were listed as co-authors and presented with commanders coins for their work. Rhode has had a paper on cancer in comic strips accepted for the American Association of the History of Medicine's annual meeting in April. Tours were given to five formal groups, including the American Association of Pathological Assistants, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, VCU School of the Arts, Elderhostel, and author Patricia Cornwell.
The Medical Illustration Service Library, through the NISC (formerly IMC) scanning project, continues to be digitized. Rhode is the Task Order Manager for the MIS part of the project; he and the assistant archivists and technicians selected material for scanning, reviewed the material, and recommended accepting the work on behalf of the government. Stocker and High provided the quality control. The members of the NISC team are processing and cataloging the images prior to scanning so the records of the images are complete upon their return. 229,125 images were scanned last year, and this year is projected to be 400,000. Collections scanned or added to the online system last year included HDAC's Carnegie collection photographs, New Contributed Photographs collection, the unpublished 7th Saranac Silicosis Symposium from the Vorwarld Collection, Hollister Collection dental education photographs, an AFIP Study of 58 Combat Deaths from Vietnam, the Museum's Accession Files, the Museum's 19th century curatorial logbooks, John King's 35mm veterinary slides, 4 boxes of the AFIP Public Affairs Office photographs, the Spanish-American War photographic collection, WRAIR 1960s-1970s photographs (under a shared contract) as well as images of WRAMC from their DPW department and all of the historical images from the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED). Thousands of 19th century Contributed Photographs and Specimen CDV scans were turned over to NISC and will be uploaded in 2010.
Computerized cataloguing on the collection has continued on both the collection and item level. Cataloguing of new material coming into the museum was done for the General Medical Products Information Collection, Medical Ephemera, New Contributed photographs, Audiovisual Collection, AFIP Historical Files, WRAMC Historical Collection and other artificial collections. Implementation of a comprehensive computer catalogue for the entire Museum continued with data from the archives added to KE Software's EMU database. New cataloguing is now done directly into EMU, unless a traditional archival-style finding aid is done.
New material acquired included a booklet of a photographic exhibit based on author Sarah Sudhoff's experience with cervical cancer; two handwritten class notebooks on physiology kept by Thomas A. McGrath, Sept 1906 to March 1907; one linear foot of letters and postcards relating to Dr. Luther B. Otken's WWI service with the American Expeditionary Forces; Pharmaceutical trade literature blotter cards; the large Archives of the American Board of Forensic Odontology; one notebook: The Physician's Perfect Call List maintained by RW Stoneburner, MD 1932-1936; papers, certificates, photos and items associated with the service of Col James L Hansen, former AFIP director; seven printed WWII-era malaria education cartoons by Frank Mack, consisting of three calendar pages from 1944 and four comic strips of Malaria Moe and Skeeter; a collection of Dr. George Ellis Mills related to the study and treatment of tuberculosis; the Goodman-Ishak Liver Pathology 35mm Slide Collection of 208 notebooks of 35mm liver pathology slides sorted by subject that were created by Dr. Kamal Ishak and Zach Goodman and arranged by Goodman; a print A Time for Healing by Robert M. Nisle, from a limited edition 1077/1120 and signed by the artist that was printed in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of WWII; a slide collection of GI Pathology and material used to help set up a cancer registry in Afghanistan by Dr. Leslie Sobin and two artworks by Bryn Barnard from his Outbreak exhibit.
The Archives has a significant presence on the Internet including the Guide to the Collections of the Museum on the museum website which remains the main way researchers begin to use the archives. Stocker has revamped the Guide for the first time since 1998 and has put it on the web. Several finding aids were added to the website. Stocker did finding aids for the Ball, Otken, and Registry of Noteworthy Research in Pathology collections. No more archival collections were listed in the Library of Congress' National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC); however, finding aids should still be sent to NUCMC in the future for the different audiences it reaches.
In fall 2006, archives staff began adding interesting photographs to Flickr's website. By late January 2008, approximately 400 photographs had gotten 48,000 views; in January 2009, 683 images had received 107,526 views, an increase of about 155%. On December 31, 2009, we wrapped up the year with slightly under a million views - 906,255 for approximately 1800 images. WRAMC continues to block access to Flickr so any additional photographs are added by staff from home. The Archives also received an invitation to join the Flickr Commons, a site for displaying the public photo collections of cultural institutions, which would increase viewership into the millions, but this has been waiting Legal Counsel's review for several years. A Repository for Bottled Monsters, an unofficial blog for the museum, continues to attract a worldwide audience. Because WRAMC blocks access to the blog, all posts to it are added by staff from home in their own time.
Books and documents scanned by IMC were uploaded to the free Internet Archive, where they are available for downloading. Titles uploaded by Stocker included a film Red Cross Work on Mutilés at Paris, 1918, a compilation of Atomic Bomb film footage (1945), the never-published Proceedings of the Seventh Saranac Symposium on Pneumoconiosis from the Vorwald collection, an issue of Carry On from 1918, and a World War 1-era Clinico Motion Pictures Catalog.
Rhode served on the AFIP's Institutional Review Board and HIPPA committees as well as Museum committees including the Admin group, the collections committee (as did Stocker), and the database committee (as did Stocker). Volunteering to do so, Stocker photographed parts of collections for use in the museum's newsletter, for exhibit production, and for uploading to the Internet Archive, and has photographed both in-progress and completed exhibits.
Research and historical material, mostly on military medicine, was provided to AFIP, especially the Public Affairs Office for which High in particular has pulled scores of photographs for a new history of the AFIP. External users were from Italy, Israel, Japan, Australia, Germany, and England and included the following institutions: University of Southern Alabama, Columbia University, National Naval Medical Center, Museum of Science and Industry, National Institutes of Health, Travel Channel, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Mutter Museum, Fort Laramie National Historic Site, US Department of Health and Human Services, Ritsumeikan University, National Museum of American History, Duke University, Simon Frasier University, University of Oxford, Temple University, New York State Museum, Branch Health Clinic, History Channel, Wesleyan University, National Institute for the Humanities, Cornell University, National Archives and Records Administration, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Stanford University, Wilmer Hale Law Library, Facts on File, Virginia Holocaust Museum, Baruch College, Iowa Methodist Medical Center, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Yale University, Dickinson College, MIT Press, Kyodo News Chiba Bureau, San Juan College, Kent State University, WETA, Virginia Historical Society, Harvard University, University of Maryland, National Geographic Society, University of Chicago, Oakland University, National Health Service (UK), Artificial Eye Clinic of Washington, DC, Royal Botanic Gardens, Scholastic Library Publishing, University of California -San Francisco, Enslow Educational Publishers, Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University, Providence Journal, Science Photo Library (UK), American Society of Nursing, Discovery Channel, Trover Health System, OAH Magazine of History, New York Times, West Kentucky Community and Technical College, National Museum of Natural History, University of Texas Health Science Center, Slack, Inc., Jefferson Community & Technical College, Victorian College of the Arts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS REPORTS
1. Interview by Alexis Madrigal for "Rare Trove of Army Medical Photos Heads to Flickr," Wired's Science blog (March 17, 2009): http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/medarchives.html; on the same topic see also "Bringing Hidden World War II Photos to the Masses," By Betsy Mason, http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2009/03/gallery_WWII_photos
2. On-camera interview by Wild Dream Films for "Death Mask," History Channel documentary on Abraham Lincoln, (interviewed February 6, aired October 26, 2009).
PRESENTATIONS
1. Stocker, K. "Luther Otken, Surgeon, American Expeditionary Forces," National Museum of Health and Medicine (June),
2. Rhode, M. "The Army Medical Museum in World War I,"American Association for the History of Medicine (April 24),
3. Rhode, M and JTH Connor. "Graphic Tales of Cancer in America," History of Science Society (November 22).
PUBLICATIONS
1. Pierce, J, M Rhode, K Stocker et. al. Walter Reed Army Medical Center Centennial: A Pictorial History, 1909-2009, Washington: Borden Institute, 2009.
