Am J Epidemiol 2002; 156:393.
Copyright © 2002 by the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
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From the Editor: The Wellcome Library
I am writing from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London where I am privileged to have an appointment as research associate. I am working on a project that I call, "Vignettes of the History of Epidemiology," short pieces designed particularly to acquaint students of the subject with lesser known but important persons and issues relevant to the field. You can find out more about the Centre and its encouragement of visiting scholars by visiting its Web site at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed. So today, I want to tell you a little about the Wellcome Trust and, more importantly, its library.
The Trust was established on the death of pharmaceutical giant Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936. It is the largest source of biomedical research funding in the United Kingdom, exceeding even the government in the amounts laid out. Its objectives are wide ranging, with emphasis on the medical, social, and ethical consequences of research. However, Sir Henry also had a personal interest in the history of medicine and had accumulated a substantial library as well as a collection of artifacts by the time of his death. These, of course, became a part of the Trust and have provided the stimulus and justification for an important thematic component of its programming, namely, the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine.
This library contains over 600,000 printed volumes, 8,000 manuscripts, 600 archives of the papers of individuals, organizations, and businesses, and an iconographic collection of over 1,000 prints, drawings, paintings, photographs, and other pictorial media. Over 70,000 books and journals are accessible on open shelving. The balance of the collections is readily obtainable by special application. In addition, the library maintains an "Information Service" housed in its own area in which 15,000 books, journals, newspaper clippings, and special reports are arranged by subject on open shelving for issues of current concern, for example, biologic warfare and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. You can get more information about the library and its collections on its Web site: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/library.
Visit the Welcome Library the next time you are in London. I think you will find it a rewarding experience. It is located at 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.
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