New York Academy of Medicine Launches New Digital Collections Website

The New York Academy of Medicine Library announces the launch of its new digital collections and exhibits website, hosted on the open-source framework Islandora and accessible at http://digitalcollections.nyam.org/. The new site makes it easy for the public to access and explore highlights of the Library’s world-class historical collections in the history of medicine and public health. The website includes some of the Library’s rare and historical collections material, including the Library’s Apicius manuscript with 500 Greek and Roman recipes from the 4th and 5th centuries; beautiful anatomical images from Andreas Vesalius's De Humani corporis Fabrica; and striking botanicals such as hand-colored plates from William P. C. Barton's Vegetable Materia Medica. Also featured is The William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards, which contains approximately 300 colorful pharmaceutical trade cards produced in the U.S. and France between 1875 and 1895 that were used to advertise a wide range of goods in the nineteenth century. Such cards are now regarded as some of the best source material for the study of advertising, technology and trade in the post-Civil War period.