Are you planning to start at McGill University this September? Are you new to campus? Have a look at McGill Library’s new introductory video below — available in English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Persian, & Spanish.*
*videos play one after the other
1907 was a fiery year in McGill’s history. On April 5th, the Macdonald Engineering building was completely gutted by fire, and less than a fortnight later on April 16th, the first Medical Faculty building (erected 1872) went up in flames, destroying the Medical Library (founded 1823) and the first Medical Museum curated by Maude Abbott.
The Strathcona Building – now known as Strathcona Anatomy & Dentistry – was built in its place, opening its doors in 1909. It became known as the New Medical Building and housed the Medical Museum, Osler Library (which opened in 1929), and the resurrected Maude Abbot Medical Museum.
The following photographs show different floors of the Strathcona Medical Library in beautiful black-and-white detail: the well-lit third floor Reading Room, the librarian’s Cataloguing Room, the book stacks, the Bindery, and the empty shelves of the original Osler Library awaiting the overseas arrival of Sir William’s collection.
Reading Room, Medical Library, New Medical Building (Strathcona), 1927.
Cataloguing Room, Medical Library, New Medical Building (Strathcona), 1927.
Stacks, Medical Library, New Medical Building (Strathcona), 1927.
Bindery Room, Medical Library, 1927.
The original Osler Library of the History of Medicine, Strathcona Medical Building, 1927.
The Osler Fellowship is programme run by the Office of Physicianship Curriculum Development. The fellows are members of the medical faculty who work with students to encourage them reflect on the role of the doctor as healer and professional. They also happen to be very well read! We have a number of books given to the library by Osler Fellows touching on many different areas of medical humanities. You can see their book recommendations by using the list function in McGill’s WorldCat catalogue.
First, enter the WorldCat catalogue from the library homepage.
Then on the next page, click on “Search for Lists” on the drop-down box under “Search.”
Search for “Osler Fellows Library” and voila! You can even read in the catalogue what the fellows have to say about why they chose a particular book. Most of the books are held in the Osler Library, some in other libraries, but just note that those held in Life Sciences are currently unavailable.
P.S. Anybody can make a list of resources in the WorldCat catalogue. Need to keep track of course readings? Have some great sci fi recommendations to share? Check out this YouTube video that shows you how to create lists. (The look and feel of the catalogue here are McGill, are slightly different than in the video, but the actions are the same.)
And continuing with our recent theme of special visitors to the library, we had some real VIPs last Friday.
We hosted an event here for McGill’s campus-wide Bring a Child to Work Day. The first part was a tour of the Osler Room and a peek at some of its treasures, including a 19th century surgeon’s kit and a couple very precious scientific and medical books.
Next, our visitors took on an accelerated training program in medieval medicine, complete with urinalysis and patient case histories.
Here are some of our graduates for the degree “Magister medicinae medievalis.” Look one of them up the next time your humors are acting up!
Photos: Lily Martin and Sabrina Hanna