The Future of Historical Medical Libraries in the Digital Age

Babak Ashrafi, PhD is the founding Director of the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. The Consortium comprises educational, cultural and research institutions working together to provide fellowships, public and academic events, as well as online resources for students, teachers and researchers. He holds PhDs in Physics from Stony Book University, and in Historical and Social Studies of Science and Technology from MIT.

Tom Baione is Harold Boeschenstein Director of the Gottesman Research Library, American Museum of Natural History. He came to the Museum’s Library in 1995 as the Special Collections Librarian, working with the Library’s extensive non-print collections, including photography, film, archives, manuscripts, art, and memorabilia, as well as the print collection, which dates to the 15th century. Tom is passionate about the 150-year history of the Museum that the Library’s varied collections illustrate. His edited volume of essays, Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library (New York, 2012), grew into a three-book series that inspired two temporary exhibits at the Museum he curated and co-curated. The Museum's new Gottesman Library opened in 2023 in the Museum's new Gilder Center, and Tom played a key role in developing the Library's new front end, featuring an architecturally dramatic, light-filled Reading Room, a separate Scholars' Reading Room and a rotating exhibit space, the Alcove Gallery, featuring highlights from the Library collections.

Michelle DiMeo, PhD is Vice President of Collections and Programs and the Arnold Thackray Director of the Othmer Library at the Science History Institute. Her library leadership career has focused on independent research libraries collecting the history of science, medicine, and technology. With Jeffrey Reznick and Christopher Lyons, she co-edited a special issue of RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage entitled “Emerging Roles for Historical Medical Libraries: Value in the Digital Age” (ACRL, 2014). A historian of early modern science and medicine by training, she is the author of Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle's Sister (University of Chicago Press, 2021). She holds a PhD in English and History from the University of Warwick and a Certification in the Curation and Management of Digital Assets from the University of Maryland.

Sandra Aya Enimil, JD, MSLIS (she/her) is the Director for Scholarly Communication and Collection Strategy at Yale Library. In this role, Sandra advises library leadership and advances the library’s strategic and operational goals related to scholarly communication and collection strategy. She also advances openness by providing insight, information, and resources on open scholarship and publishing. She consults with Yale researchers on using copyrighted materials and assists creators in protecting their own copyright. Sandra leads a committee that reviews and negotiates licenses for electronic resources and provides input on licenses of all types for the library. Sandra collaborates with the Yale Office of General Counsel, individuals and departments within the library, and colleagues across and beyond campus on issues related to scholarly communication, collections, copyright, and publishing. 

Sandra is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and is interested in the intersection of DEI and intellectual property. She earned her Law and MSLIS degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sandra has BAs in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Ghana, Legon.

Melissa Grafe, PhD is the Head of the Medical Historical Library at Yale School of Medicine and joined Yale University in 2011 as the John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. She received her PhD in the History of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University in 2009 and was a Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR) postdoctoral fellow at Lehigh University Library. Grafe leads the Medical Historical Library team and manages the library's collections, including over 100,000 medical and scientific volumes from the 12th to 21st centuries, as well as a growing digital archive. She also works with students and faculty on research and classes; develops grants and publications; oversees major digitization projects; curates and stages exhibitions; and manages donations, among other duties. Her most recent publication, “Treating the Digital Disease: The Role of Digital and Physical Primary Sources in Undergraduate Teaching,” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage (Spring 2021), considers the role of physical and digital collections in undergraduate education. Grafe is a former president of the Medical Heritage Library, a collaborative digitization and discovery organization committed to providing open access resources in the history of healthcare and the health sciences. She was also president of the Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences (LAMPHHS) from 2018 to 2020.

Jeremy A. Greene, MD, PhD is William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he serves as Director of the Institute of the History of Medicine and founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Social Medicine. In addition to his primary appointments, he serves as faculty and investigator in a variety of capacities at Hopkins.

Dr. Greene’s research explores the ways in which medical technologies influence our understandings of what it means to be sick or healthy, normal or abnormal, on personal, regional, and global scales. He has published The Doctor Who Wasn’t There: Technology, History, and the Limits of Telehealth(University of Chicago Press, 2022); Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); and Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). His newest research project, Syringe Tide: Disposable Technologies and the Making of Medical Waste, focuses on the shift towards disposable technologies in hospitals and clinics, with inevitable environmental consequences.

He received his MA in medical anthropology (Harvard, 2004) and the MD and the PhD degree in the history of science (Harvard, 2005). He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in 2008 and practices medicine at the East Baltimore Medical Center, a community health center affiliated with Johns Hopkins. His work has been recognized by numerous awards, most recently the 2021 Nicholas Davies Award from the American College of Physicians for “outstanding scholarly activities in history, literature, philosophy, and ethics and contributions to humanism in medicine.” Dr. Greene received a Guggenheim Fellowship for study during the 2023–2024 academic year.

Bert Hansen, PhD is Professor of History Emeritus, Baruch College of CUNY, specializing in the history of medicine and public health, with a special interest in the images of health and medicine and how they were received. In 2009, he published Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio. His recent publications have documented Louis Pasteur’s many personal and professional relationships with artists and the Parisian art world. He has held three research fellowships: Mellon Faculty Fellow, Harvard University; Member, Institute for Advanced Study; and Visitor, Institute for Advanced Study. He holds the PhD in history and history of science from Princeton University. Dr. Hansen serves on the Summary and Recommendations Group for the conference. For further information, see his website: https://www.berthansen.com/. 

Pamela Horn, JD is Director of Cross-Platform Content at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She leads publishing and interpretation in print and digitally across books, exhibitions, digital interactives, and the website. In her role for twelve years, she develops cross-departmental systems creating cohesive, accessible, strategy-driven audience experiences. She oversees the Cross-Platform Content, Digital and Emerging Media, Audio/Visual, and Customer Relationship Management departments. In partnership with the curatorial, exhibitions, communications, advancement, and learning and visitor engagement teams, she helps facilitate consistent, inclusive product development to serve internal and external stakeholders. She cultivates strategic partnerships dedicated to extending Cooper Hewitt’s brand and reach through collaborations based on mission focused initiatives. 

Pamela’s publications,  digital platforms, and applications have won numerous awards including the Museum Association of New York’s 2024 Award of Distinction for Excellence in Design for a Digital Exhibition Platform, the 2023 George Wittenborn Memorial Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America for art book publishing, the 2018 Gold MUSE award for Accessible Label Systems from American Alliance of Museums, and the AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers awards for multiple titles between 2015 through 2019. Prior to joining Cooper Hewitt in 2012, she worked for twenty years in trade book publishing, focusing predominately on illustrated non-fiction, with experience in developing book-plus product and custom publishing programs. She received a BA in Literary & Cultural Studies and Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a JD from Cardozo School of Law.

Polina E. Ilieva, PhD is an Associate University Librarian for Collections, UCSF Archivist, and an Assistant Adjunct Professor with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She leads three major units at the UCSF Library: Archives and Special Collections, Collection Development, and Technical Services, and collaborates on the development and implementation of the library’s strategic priorities and vision. Polina serves or served as a PI for several collaborative multi-institutional grant projects funded by the Sloan Foundation, National Archives, National Library of Medicine, and NEH that support expansion and digitization of holdings related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, women scientists, and history of health sciences. Polina partners with community health organizations in California on issues related to records preservation with the goal of creating a more inclusive and equitable historical record. She is active in several groups working on the preservation and access to historical patient records and interested in issues related to the appraisal of contemporary scientific research. She is the immediate past President of the Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences (LAMPHHS), served on the board of the Medical Heritage Library, and is a member of the Executive Committee for NNLM Region 5. Polina is the UCSF Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Repatriation Point of Contact and is a co-director of the UCSF Program for Historical Reconciliation. Most recently, Ilieva initiated the UCSF Digital Health Humanities program with the goal of providing educational resources to encourage and develop research capabilities using data science techniques to analyze “archives as data.”

Lise Jaillant, PhD is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Digital Cultural Heritage at Loughborough University.

Lise has a background in publishing history and digital humanities. She is an expert on born-digital archives and the issues of preservation and access to these archives. Since 2020, she has been UK PI for four AHRC-funded projects on Archives and Artificial Intelligence. These international projects aim to make digitised and born-digital archives more accessible to researchers, and to use innovative research methods such as AI to analyse archival data.

Lise enjoys working across sectors and disciplines. As a digital humanist, she has extensive experience of collaborating with computer scientists, archivists, librarians, and government professionals to unlock digital archival data with innovative technologies.

Ann Kurth, PhD, RN, CNM, MPH, FAAN, FACNM (she/hers) is a leader in health – with a passion for the planet. In January 2023 Dr. Kurth began as President of the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), a leading organization focused on research for health equity; she is the first epidemiologist to lead NYAM in its 175-year history. As President, Dr. Kurth supports NYAM’s mission to eliminate the barriers that prevent every individual from living a healthy life. As former Dean and Lorimer Professor at Yale School of Nursing, and Professor, Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Kurth helped shape Yale’s university-level strategies around a ‘planetary solutions’ science priority; inclusive excellence; and campus sustainability. She co-founded the Yale Institute for Global Health, and she currently co-chairs the National Academy of Medicine Board on Global Health ,which includes a focus on climate change and health.  Dr. Kurth’s research focuses on HIV/reproductive health, and global health system strengthening, in the context of pandemics, climate change and other stresses. She has published ~250 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and monographs. Dr. Kurth is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (FACNM), and of NYAM. She is past chair of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, the 175+-university member association supporting “academic institutions to improve the wellbeing of people and the planet.”

Trevor Owens, PhD is a social scientist, historian, and archivist working to deepen the positive impact of mission-driven organizations on society through humanities and social science research.

Owens serves as the first Chief Research Officer of the American Institute of Physics, charged with implementing and leading AIP’s new unit, AIP Research, focused on the interplay of the physical sciences, relevant public policy, and disciplinary cultures.

He is a Public Historian in Residence at American University, a Lecturer for the University of Maryland’s College of Information, and a faculty member for California’s Rare Book School, and serves on boards of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, of Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices, and of the Services Consultation Committee for Library and Archives Canada.

Previously he served as the Director of Digital Services at the Library of Congress; as Senior Program Officer and Associate Deputy Director for Libraries at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS); and at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

The author of four books, Owens has written After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory (University of Michigan Press, 2024) and The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018); his work is featured in numerous publications.

Owens has received numerous awards and scholarships, including Fulbright Specialist with the National Library of Kosovo (2022); the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology of the American Library Association (2021); and the Archival Innovator Award of the Society for American Archivists (2014).

Vimla L. Patel, PhD serves on the Program Committee for the conference. She is a senior research scientist in cognitive studies in medicine and public health at the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), and an adjunct biomedical informatics professor at Columbia and Cornell. Trained as a cognitive and educational psychologist focusing on medical decision-making, she was the director of the Center for Medical Education and Cognitive Science Center at McGill University (Montréal, QC). Moving to the US, she had professorial appointments at Columbia and Arizona State Universities. Her interest is investigating the role of AI in augmenting human intelligence in medicine. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Social Sciences), the American College of Medical Informatics, the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, and NYAM. Dr. Patel received the AMIA 2021 William W. Stead Award for Thought Leadership in Informatics. Editor of the Springer book series Cognitive Informatics in Healthcare and Biomedicine, she was previously an associate editor of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics and an assistant editor of AI in Medicine. She has over 300 scholarly publications spanning books and journals in biomedical informatics, education, clinical medicine, and cognitive science.

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, FRHistS is Senior Historian at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. He an experienced public sector executive and award-winning historian who works strategically with teams across the NLM to provide leadership and direction to advance access to its world-renowned collection, as well as its growth and preservation for future generations. He serves as a senior advisor to staff and leadership on partnerships and scholarly activities, and he maintains a diverse, interdisciplinary, and highly collaborative historical research portfolio supported by the library and based on its diverse collection and associated products and services. He is author of three books, many articles and book chapters, and, served as co-editor, with Michelle DiMeo and Christopher Lyons, of the proceedings of the 2013 College of Physicians of Philadelphia conference “Emerging Roles for Historical Medical Libraries: Value in the Digital Age,” published open access in the Association of College and Research Libraries' journal RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritagehttps://rbm.acrl.org/index.php/rbm/issue/view/57.

Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD is Chair Emeritus and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He also holds an adjunct appointment at Weill Cornell Medical College. Previously he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Medical Informatics Association and held academic appointments at Arizona State University, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and the University of Arizona. He chaired the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia (2000­­–2007) and the Section on Medical Informatics at Stanford University (1979–2000). A pioneer in artificial intelligence in medicine, including development of the first medical expert system (MYCIN), he has also led graduate degree programs in biomedical informatics at Stanford, Columbia, and Arizona State University. Both a PhD informatics scientist and a physician who has practiced internal medicine, Dr. Shortliffe has been elected to fellowship in the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), and the International Academy for Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI). A Master of the American College of Physicians, he received the Association of Computing Machinery’s Grace Murray Hopper Award (1976), ACMI’s Morris F. Collen Award (2006), IMIA’s François Grémy Award of Excellence (2021), NYAM’s Academy Plaque for Exceptional Service to the Academy (2023), and NAM’s Walsh McDermott Award (2023). Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Dr. Shortliffe has authored over 375 articles and books including major textbooks on biomedical informatics and artificial intelligence in medicine.

Paul Theerman, PhD (he/him) serves as Director of the NYAM Library and Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health, a role he took up in 2018. In this capacity he oversees the full range of library activities, including cataloging and description, collection development, digitization, preservation and conservation, public engagement and outreach, and user services. Prior to NYAM he served as Head of Images and Archives, National Library of Medicine; Associate Archivist, Smithsonian Institution Archives; Assistant/Associate Editor, Joseph Henry Papers Project, Smithsonian Institution; and Humanist-in-Residence at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Over the course of his career he seeks to inform the public how science, technology, and medicine have shaped human lives throughout history, through teaching, exhibition, publication, social media, and other venues. He regularly teaches a course in the history of public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Theerman holds a PhD in the history of science from the University of Chicago.

David J. Wolf, MD, FACP is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, a retired clinical hematologist/medical oncologist, and an antiquarian medical book collector. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill College of Medicine at Cornell University where he volunteers at the Medical Center Archives. He sits on the Board of Governors of the American Osler Foundation and on the Board of Directors of the Waring Library Society. He is also Chief Hematology and Medical Oncology Consultant Emeritus at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Rogosin Institute.

Borui Zhang, PhD is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) Specialist Librarian at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. With a PhD in Linguistics and a minor in Computer Science, she collaborates with academic professionals on AI projects across various domains, including medical, natural history, and agriculture. Borui also teaches introductory AI courses to both graduate and undergraduate students, and she leads a library AI team providing training to fellow librarians.