Consortium Special Collections Search Hub

Search for keywords in nearly 6 million catalog records and 40,000 finding aids for rare books, manuscripts, images, media and artifacts at member institutions. (Circulating collections are not included.)

all keywords  any keywords

Search Examples:

Keywords
medicine 1496
Wildcard Ending
optic*
Phrase
"quantum optics"

Items at Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, the University of Maryland, the University of Sydney, the National Library of Medicine, the University of Kansas, the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are currently not included in this search hub. You can explore these collections under the "Collections Descriptions" tab.

Include in Search:
If you do not select any boxes, all collections will be included in the search. If you wish to limit your search to specific collections, check the appropriate box(es).

American Institute of Physics
American Philosophical Society
California Institute of Technology
Cedars-Sinai
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Columbia University
Drexel University
Duke University
Hagley Library
Huntington Library
Johns Hopkins University Library
Library Company
Library of Congress
Linda Hall Library
New York Academy of Medicine
Newberry Library
The Rockefeller Archive Center
Science History Institute
Smithsonian Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Oklahoma
University of Pennsylvania
Wagner Free Institute of Science
Wellcome Collection
Yale University

 


Isis Current Bibliography

of secondary sources, provided by the History of Science Society


 

We have compiled a list of digital collections and resources from our member instittutions. We will continue to update this list as we receive more information.

 
 

California Institute of Technology

Major research collections available remotely:

Reference inquiries: archives@caltech.edu

 

College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Digital image library: https://www.cppdigitallibrary.org/

S. Weir Mitchell papers: https://mitchell.cppdigitallibrary.org/s/mitchell/page/intro

The College of Physicians is a partner with the Medical Heritage Library, which has a significant collection of digitzed material: http://www.medicalheritage.org/search-2/

 

Duke University

Duke Digital Collections: https://repository.duke.edu/dc

Instruction/Digital Activities & Assignments: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/instruction

Contact for research assistance: AskRL@duke.edu

 

 

Hagley Museum and Library

Finding aids: https://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/

Digital archives: https://digital.hagley.org/

Digital exhibits: https://www.hagley.org/research/digital-exhibits

Oral history collections: https://digital.hagley.org/oralhistory?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=1e4410717a82cc925873&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0

Newsletter: https://www.hagley.org/research/research-news-events/news/all-news

Scholars' projects: https://www.hagley.org/research/news/scholar-projects

Stories from the Stacks podcast: https://www.hagley.org/research/programs/stories-stacks

Millrace podcast: https://www.hagley.org/millrace

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQPQhnwuLEyoJ1LanZi2cA

 

Harvard University

Harvard Digital Collections: Linking to over 6 million items from Harvard’s collections.

Curiosity: curated guides to selected digitized collections at Harvard.

Colonial North America project: link to approximately 650,000 digitized pages related to 17th and 18th century North American holdings at Harvard.

Biodiversity Heritage Library, with a direct link to the Botany Libraries’ contributions and the Ernst Mayr (Museum of Comparative Zoology) Library’s contributions to the BHL.

 

Huntington Library

Research questions may be submitted to reference@huntington.org

 

Library Company of Philadelphia

Collections search: https://digital.librarycompany.org/discovery

Digital exhibits: https://librarycompany.org/research/exhibits/

Fireside chats: https://librarycompany.org/fireside-chats/

Talking in the Library podcast: https://librarycompany.org/talking-in-the-library/

 

Linda Hall Library

The Linda Hall Library's digital collections provide access to hundreds of rare books and periodicals exploring the history of science and technology from the 15th century to the present. Astronomy, mathematics, earth sciences, and natural history are all well-represented in the Library's online holdings. Historians of engineering will also find much to explore in the Library's collection of 19th century railroad journals and the A.B. Nichols Panama Canal Collection. The Library adds new items to its digital collections on a regular basis. Noteworthy recent additions include Samuel Morse’s journal, Thomas Edison’s instructions to operate an electric power plant, and an article on radioactivity by Marie Curie annotated in her own hand.

To begin reviewing the Linda Hall Library’s digital collections, visit http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/.  Please note that the Library is currently investing in a new content management system and would welcome visitor feedback on the organization of its online resources. For further information, email the Library’s Vice President for Research and Scholarship, Benjamin Gross (grossb@lindahall.org).

 

New York Academy of Medicine

Stay connected and access resources: https://www.nyam.org/library/stay-connected-update-resources-nyam-library/

 

Newberry Library

Digital resources: http://www.newberry.org/digital-newberry

Online collection: http://digcoll.newberry.org/#/

Contact a librarian: https://www.newberry.org/contact-librarian

 

Rockefeller Archive Center

Archival material is available to all researchers through DIMES (dimes.rockarch.org), RAC's online finding aid system.  When browsing finding aids, digitized materials will appear with a camera icon.  To a general search for digitized materials in DIMES, go to: https://dimes.rockarch.org/xtf/search

Significant online collections include:

  • A large portion of the Rockefeller Foundation officer diaries have been digitized (in DIMES, these finding aids appear, arranged alphabetically by officer's last name as FA391, FA392, FA393, FA394.)
  • The vast majority of records of the Foundation for Child Development (1898-1998) have been digitized.  Identified in DIMES as FA019.
  • The RAC created a digital history website for the centennial of the Rockefeller Foundation.  It includes essays, photographs and extensive digitized documents from RAC.  Available online at https://rockfound.rockarch.org/.
  • The RAC recently launched RE:source, RAC's storytelling platform, highlighting the history of philanthropy through RAC's collection.  Available online at: https://resource.rockarch.org/.

RAC has a very extensive set of research reports submitted by RAC research stipend awardees, providing broad insight into RAC collections and their historic themes.  Available online at: http://rockarch.issuelab.org/?coverage=&author=&funder=&publisher=&wikitopic_categories=&keywords=&pubdate_start_year=1&pubdate_end_year=1&sort=&categories=

With specific questions, researchers should feel free to contact Lee R. Hiltzik, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, who serves as RAC's coordinator with the Consortium.  Lee can be reached at: lhiltzik@rockarch.org

For general questions about archival access and use, researchers should consult https://rockarch.org/collections/access-and-request-materials/

 

University of Oklahoma

Digital collection: https://repository.ou.edu/

History of Science Portrait Collection: https://digital.libraries.ou.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/LPC

Twitter: Search@OU_Libraries & @PalmeriJoAnn

Contact for research questions: JoAnn Palmeri (palmerij@ou.edu) Research Coordinator & Librarian, History of Science Collections, OU Libraries

 

Yale University

Online resources for history of medicine research: https://guides.library.yale.edu/histmedonline

Digital collections: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/digital

Contact for research questions: Melissa Grafe, melissa.grafe@yale.edu