Academic Health Center History Project

Frequently asked questions

By Erik Moore March 6, 2007
FAQ

What happens to the stuff I send to the archives?

Part I. Sending Materials to the Archives

Materials that are collected as part of the AHC History Project become part of the collections of the University Archives located in Andersen Library. At University Archives, the items will be processed according to professional standards and stored in a technologically advanced, climate controlled storage center located approximately 80 feet below ground level in a hollowed out limestone cavern. The “caverns,” as they are often referred to, house a concrete structure – essentially a building within the cavern – where the materials are stored. Access to the caverns is limited to Andersen Library staff.

University Archives is one of nearly a dozen units within Andersen Library that focuses on collecting, preserving, and providing access to historical information. Other units include the Charles Babbage Institute, the Immigration History Research Center, and Special Collections and Rare Books among others.

When material is shipped to Andersen Library it usually arrives in the archives work room (see below) located in the underground caverns. This is a common work space for all of the units in Andersen Library. Larger collections will be initially reboxed and processed in this space. Smaller collections can be brought upstairs to the individual unit and reboxed and processed in the unit’s office space.

The collection below is a relatively small shipment (7 boxes) of materials related to the AHC History Project. The boxes were shipped to the archives using a University of Minnesota Libraries service. The originating office labeled the boxes to be delivered to University Archives with an attention to the project archivist. The boxes are also label “1 of #” to guarantee all of the boxes were transported together and arrived safely. These boxes were brought up to the University Archives office space for initial processing.

The material in these white banker boxes will be placed in similar sized boxes that are of archival quality, meaning sturdier construction for handling and made of acid free materials. Some of the paper material may require being placed in folders or re-foldered due to the original folder’s deterioration or to create a uniformity among all folders.

Part II will look at the processing and physical arrangement phase that will make the materials ready for a researcher to use.

AHC history project remarks

By Erik Moore March 5, 2007
Events, Perspectives, Project admin

Below are the remarks I delivered as part of the introductions at the AHC guest lecture by Gretchen Krueger. The event doubled as an opportunity to formally launch the AHC History Project.

Academic Health Center History Project Launch

February 28, 2007

Welcome. I appreciate your interest in tonight’s event and would like to take a few moments to elaborate on the project that I am working on.

The Academic Health Center History Project is a unique collaborative effort between the Academic Health Center and the University of Minnesota Libraries to ensure that the rich history of the Academic Health Center is preserved within the University Archives.

The goals of the project are to identify, collect, and provide access to the institutional and historical documentation of the Academic Health Center, its six schools and colleges, and its interdisciplinary centers at the University of Minnesota. The outcome is to ensure that this valuable documentation is preserved over the long term and made permanently accessible for scholarly and administrative uses in the University Archives.

However, where I’d really like to begin is by quoting Dr. Cerra from his State of the AHC address delivered in this auditorium last month. Speaking about ways to support current research, Dr. Cerra reminded the audience that “There is a repository of wisdom in our faculty… We need the wisdom of those faculty and we don’t really have a good system for tapping it and using it.” I understand this wisdom to be broader than the traditional model of publication. It is a wisdom that comes from experience and personal interrelations.

I would argue that tonight’s topic is a case in point. It is hard to find a biographical note on Dr. Kennedy that does not refer to him as “the father of medical oncology.” He was a “repository of wisdom.”

In 1999, Dr. Kennedy’s essay in The Lancet, “Origin and Evolution of Medical Oncology” detailed the history of the medical oncologist’s role in patient care. Dr. Kennedy lamented the lack of interest that oncologists-in-training had in its historical origins, commenting, “I’ve spent 47 years in an academic environment, and I know that many young oncologists are not interested in the history of oncology. They either don’t have the time or don’t have the interest to trace the origins, and some of them are reinventing the wheel.”

Dr. Kennedy was well aware of the repository of wisdom faculty could be and he made great progress in being a source of information for others.

But I hasten to add that this project is not about faculty alone. The administrative units of the AHC, its schools and colleges, and centers are all repositories of wisdom that need tapped as well. A better institutional understanding comes from a well-documented institutional history. Without which, there is little or no context for the work being done. It is not only researchers who are prone to reinvent the wheel. We re-visit familiar ideas in our strategic planning, curriculum design, and clinical operations year after year.

Dr. Kennedy once said, “My favorite expression is that medical oncology is the practice of internal medicine, but all the patients happen to have cancer.” Dr. Kennedy believed in a comprehensive care approach. Why combat the cancer if the onset of additional health issues were left unchecked?

It is like sticking your thumb in a hole of a cracked dike and ignoring the mounting pressure of water on the other side.

To date, the attempts to stop the loss of history at the AHC have been something closer to the thumb-in-the-hole method while the mounting pressure of lost history grew.

With the AHC History Project we are gathering partners together to stop the loss. As you have heard there is an institutional commitment from the AHC and the University Libraries to preserve this history and make sure there is access to it.

But on the other side of the table are you: the faculty, administrators, department heads, administrative staff, students, and family. You are part of this project as well. You are the people who understand the history by living through it. We will need your help at locating it and bringing it out into the light so that it can be preserved and others can have access to it. You are part of our insurance against the dike breaking.

Thank you for coming tonight. Your interest in the AHC’s history demonstrates that we have a great foundation for us to develop this project and see the repository of wisdom of the Academic Health Center built.

Thank you.

AHC history round table

By Erik Moore February 27, 2007
Events, Project admin

On Wednesday, February 21st, the AHC History Project hosted a small round table discussion on the history of the AHC. The seven participants included Frank Cerra, SrVPHS; Neal Gault, former Dean Medical School; Harry Hogenkamp, former head of Dept. of Biochemistry; John Kersey, Director Cancer Center; John Kralewski, former Director Institute of Health Services Research, Public Health; Marilyn Sime, former Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies, School of Nursing; and Charlene Thoemke, Executive Assistant, SrVPHS, and agreed to answer a few open ended questions and express some of their own in a conversational format. The invited audience included a few members of the advisory committee, AHC Office of Communications staff, and University Archives staff. It was hoped that a small audience would not inhibit the overall discussion.

For nearly three hours, the participants discussed their own backgrounds at the AHC, their understandings of major events and milestones, education and research issues, the influence of managed care on the AHC’s mission, and current and future funding concerns.

The discussion was professionally videotaped and all participants agreed to the recording being deposited in University Archives for future research use.

The ultimate goal of the round table was to better guide the history project by bringing in key individuals to help identify topics and events. Although this was an experiment, its success seems evident and will likely support a series of future round table discussions.

AHC History Project Lecture

By Erik Moore February 15, 2007
Events, Project admin

B.J. Kennedy and the Campaign for Medical Oncology
by Gretchen Krueger, historical consultant for the American Society of Clinical Oncology from 2003-06m
Location: Mayo Memorial Auditorium
Contact: For further information, contact Jenny Meslow at 626-7072 or email meslo001@umn.edu

The Academic Health Center and University Libraries will launch the AHC History Project with a special lecture honoring the late University of Minnesota oncologist B.J. Kennedy. Gretchen Krueger, historical consultant for the American Society of Clinical Oncology from 2003-06, will speak on “B.J. Kennedy and the Campaign for Medical Oncology,” Wednesday, Feb. 28, from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Mayo Memorial Auditorium. A reception will follow in the auditorium lobby. The AHC History Project is dedicated to preserving the rich history of the Academic Health Center and promoting the collection of its historical documents within the University Archives. For more information, go to: www.ahc.umn.edu/img/assets/7617/HistoryProject_Kennedy.pdf

State of the AHC

By Erik Moore February 6, 2007
Events, Perspectives

Last Wednesday, January 31, 2007, Dr. Frank Cerra, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, delivered his annual State of the AHC address (streaming video available). Several pieces of his presentation struck a chord with me and demonstrate relationships with the overall goals of this project. I’d like to discuss one of those pieces below.

During his explanation of his vision for research, he listed the following bullet point under the topic of concerns & issues.

We need to value and use wisdom of existing faculty/staff

What he said was:

The final concern I heard in this area was find a better way to value and utilize faculty wisdom. There is a repository of wisdom in our faculty… We need the wisdom of those faculty and we don’t really have a good system for tapping it and using it. It’s part of a dialogue that’s on going and I think we need to really learn how to do this. (35:21, streaming video)

I think this is a key approach to better help faculty and their departments understand the importance of their work and its relevance beyond publication. Lecture notes, correspondence, presentations, committee work, all these facets of a faculty member’s life represent the whole of their repository of wisdom. Believing that a life-time career can be easily measured in the publications left behind paints a false portrait of a faculty member’s work. It is linear and flat. It gives the impression that their work began with Point A and finished at Point B.

We all know a professional career is not that simple. It is full of false starts and the abandonment of some research questions to pursue others. It is dynamic and multileveled. It is not a portrait done by a connect-the-dots strategy, but one done in pointillism. What may seem random dots of color up close, in fact, come into focus as you step away from the canvas.

Archives can act as part of the solution for the concerns & issues raised in this vision for research. They can act not only as a source for information, but also as a model for how to organize the repository of wisdom being created at that moment.

Familiar faces

By Erik Moore February 2, 2007
Curiosities

Two familiar faces re-entered my office this afternoon. The portraits of the Mayo brothers are still in need of a little restoration, although most of the damage is to one of the frames. Their disposition seems to be back in my court. Further investigation is needed.

Time versus space

By Erik Moore January 31, 2007
Perspectives

I am coming closer to terms with the speed at which health science materials travel. The urgency for new information and the rapid turnover of theories, studies, and reports in the professional literature creates an environment with little regard for historical perspectives. Who has time to look at all this “old stuff” when the review of incoming material is beyond the limitations of any individual. Aggregators and literature review services are the only means available for health science professionals to be aware of the enormous amount of information passing through their periphery.

The speed of information coupled with the space limitations of departments and divisions operating in facilities designed in an era that could not anticipate their current needs creates a hazardous environment for institutional documentation and the personal papers of faculty. The time/space pressure results in a clean sweep after the retirement or death of faculty and administrators.

The loss is happening in real time. On any given day I can walk through the various buildings and see material piled next to trash containers or left for janitors outside of office doors. Or, as in a recent case, it comes to me through an email notifying me that it is all gone. Usually, it is tendered with a “wish I had known…” or “I didn’t realize someone would want this old stuff.”

Obviously, I cannot change the established environment, but, hopefully through a few upcoming events, word of the project and the value of the material can begin to seep into the consciousness of those I am working to document.

School of Public Health

By Erik Moore January 26, 2007
Digital, Public health

Yesterday at a Libraries’ planning retreat, Dean John Finnegan of the School of Public Health spoke to us about what he felt his school needed from the Libraries.

With a background in media and communications, Dean Finnegan’s interests include pairing new technologies with the mission of the SPH. This is clearly evident on the School’s web site that displays current SPH student blogs, podcasts, and videos (Student SPHere) related to their education and time in the field.

The SPH’s emphasis on new technologies presents interesting and exciting challenges for me in documenting the School’s activities. I hope to use the backbone of the University Digital Conservancy to preserve the SPH’s digital materials.

Faculty meetings

By Erik Moore January 25, 2007
Medical school, Partners, Public health, Veterinary medicine

Last week’s visitors from Seoul National University prompted several conversations with retired faculty either involved with the original partnership or international programs.

First, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Neal Gault, former Dean of the Medical School. Dr. Gault lived in Korea with his family for two years. Dr. Gault and other university faculty acted as program supervisors at SNU during the reconstruction of the medical school and faculty training.

I also had the chance to meet Dr. John Arnold, former Head of Surgery and Radiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Arnold was the only CVM faculty member to stay in Korea during the partnership. He and his family were on site from 1960-1961. He described his work as modernizing the training of graduates and supporting the work of the younger faculty. Dr. Arnold also discussed his role as a faculty consultant in Columbia in 1963.

Although not a participant in the SNU partnership, I also met with Dr. Stanley Diesch, a retired faculty member of the College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Diesch served as director for the CVM’s international programs. In addition to his international work, Dr. Diesch was a founding member and former director of CENSHARE (Center for the Study of Human Animal Relationships and Environments) housed in the School of Public Health. Dr. Diesch also served as the Head of Food Hygiene and Veterinary Public Health.

All of the above conversations were enlightening and acted as a starting point for new collection leads.

Seoul National University

By Erik Moore January 17, 2007
Medical school, Nursing, Partners, Veterinary medicine

In the 1950s and 1960s the University of Minnesota partnered with Seoul National University in a cooperative relationship to develop educational and research programs in agriculture, the medical sciences, and engineering. The effort allowed University of Minnesota faculty and civil service staff to learn from their counterparts in Korea and assisted in SNU’s reconstruction after the war as an institution and as a source of intellectual labor to strengthen Korea’s post-war economy.

Recently, a cooperative partnership between the SNU Archives and the U of M Archives has worked to identify materials held by the two institutions documenting the cooperative arrangement. Currently, researchers from SNU are mining the materials at the U of M to locate unique items not known or held by SNU.

This is an opportune time to locate and identify individuals in the AHC that have a connection to the original partnership or departments and offices that may still have material related to the University’s work with SNU. The Medical School, School of Nursing, and Veterinary Medicine were all involved in the cooperative.

I have already noted that the small sampling of John Arnold’s papers have some correspondence resulting from the partnership. The School of Nursing has a binder of related documents as well. Dr. Neal Gault, former dean of the Medical School, was also a participant. We are working to identify additional individuals and I hope the current interest in the SNU partnership will generate collection leads and accessions for the AHC archives project.

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