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Doing history of science at Schulich

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We extend our gratitude to Ezra J. Teboul, our Master of Information Studies practicum student at Schulich Library over the winter term. In this guest post, Ezra offers some lessons learned from working with the Mossman Collection on the History of Science and of Ideas.

McGill’s libraries contain invaluable holdings for the historian of science. A researcher at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, I was until June also in the Master of Information Studies at McGill. In my last semester (Winter 2025), I studied the contents of the Mossman Collection on the History of Science and of Ideas at the Schulich Library for Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering. Completed with the patient supervision and many insights of April Colosimo, a big part of my project was dedicated to quantitatively assessing how the collection had evolved since its donation by Donald and Dorothea Mossman in 1974. This teaches us not just about science and how it has evolved, but also about the way history of science has been done (historiography). It’s important to understand both because science is done by humans and requires continual, active investment by the individuals and institutions it needs and affects to have a positive impact.

A graph of the years of publication of items included in the Mossman Collection in the History of Science and Ideas as currently listed in the McGill Sofia Catalogue.

This blog post illustrates how the Mossman can act as a good starting point for doing history and historiography of science and how these fields are interesting from an information access perspective because it is distributed across Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). But how might an undergraduate or junior graduate student interested in the history of science navigate the Mossman collection and the wider McGill catalogue to learn about this complex topic? Below I give an example of a research thread that starts in the Mossman collection before extending to the University collections at large.

The McGill Libraries, like many research institutions, use the Library of Congress Subject Headings for classification and access. The LCSH have a tree structure, with headings, subheadings, and call numbers of increasing specificity, not simply cataloguing every book but also linking them across branches of this knowledge tree.

History of Science, however, is a young field with very interdisciplinary practitioners: historians of course, but also scientists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, cultural and media studies scholars, etc. Many of its practitioners, like Karen Barad, start out in a technical field (theirs was quantum physics) before considering the history of those technical fields. It is also applied to almost every scientific, technological or medical topic: engineering, chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology… In that sense history of science is by definition always at least concerned with perspectives on the same technical topic: scientists, and how scientists’ view of their own work in their specialty has changed. I find it to be a particularly exciting, reflexive exercise that attempts to extend science’s inquisitive perspective (why is it like this?) to the people doing science themselves. But, from a practical perspective, it makes it difficult to categorize history of science and related publications.

Here is a graph of all the subject headings just included in the Mossman collection for the History of Science and Ideas. The blue corresponds to the contents of the collection in 1986, when a catalogue for the collection was made by the Schulich librarians. The red corresponds to the contents of the collection in 2025, when I collaborated with the McGill Libraries Collections department to do this study. To find every book on the online catalogue associated with the Mossman, look up the corresponding “uniform title.”

A graph of the LCSH headings for the items in the Mossman collection, for 1986 and 2025.

In this graph you’ll notice that most books are in the Science or Technology classes (LCSH classifications Q and T respectively) but there are 19 other headings as well. For a full list of the heading letters and their meaning, see Library of Congress Classification Outline. T, unsurprisingly, is technology, but science is Q and History is split across multiple headings: C, D, E and F (but it is notable to see that only very little of the Mossman items fall in any of these). The LCSH was first published in 1898, and this imbalance reflects the biases of scholarship in the United States at that point: a lot of academia was dedicated to historical research, while technology and science were only just becoming formal scholarly specialties. Engineering in the US and Canada had only had professional societies since 1852 with the American Society of Civil Engineers.

So doing history of science, is, from a bibliographic perspective, an interesting challenge. You can’t simply go to the stacks and find the right shelf. Books you will learn the most from may be shelves apart!

This is the value of collections like the Mossman, which used to show many of the best books on an interdisciplinary topic in the same location. With the increasing popularity of digital catalogue browsing, and the shift for the bulk of McGill collections to a robotic collections center, browsing the stacks is becoming a bit of a lost art—making all the more important the maintenance of specialized collections’ identities and purpose. If the much larger Osler history of medicine library has remained in its physical location on campus, the Mossman has been distributed across other branches, including off-site storage.

This makes the Schulich library a generous study space, but it means scholars have to trade luck in the stacks for clever digital browsing tactics. Indeed the Mossman—which over the years has included at least 6500 or so individual titles— mostly remains accessible somewhere in some form, and the rest of this post gives you a personal example of how you might access them and link them to resources from the rest of the collection.

Many of the references central to my own research are in or around the Mossman. My personal specialty is in the history of electronics, which mostly requires a knowledge of chemistry, elementary physics, signal processing, industrial manufacturing techniques, and computer science (and a few other things). One of my favorite books in the Mossman Collection is What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History by Walter Vincenti (1990). Its call number is TL515 V44 1990. Here is how that call number is constructed:

T: Technology
   L: Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
    515: History, General Works 
           V44 1990: "Cutter" number and year. These are determined by each library for further subdivision

You can already see how some categories unrelated to history (e.g. “Technology: Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics” will get a historical subheading (e.g. “515”). You can also see how some subheadings (e.g. “General Works”) are somewhat vague. Classification systems like LCSH can only get you so far when doing thorough literature reviews, and it helps to speak to other researchers and subject librarians for ideas of other headings and subheadings to consider investigating.

In my case, although aeronautics may only seem partially related to electronics research, it turns out that during the Cold War, a significant amount of electronics research was undertaken for various Air Forces, especially in Canada and the U.S. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of those countries’ industrial production capacity via machine shops was in no small part funded by defense contracts which financed private companies to supply the corresponding militaries. In that sense, learning about how aeronautical engineers produce knowledge maps very informatively to the way that electrical engineers consume and produce knowledge as well. This is made clear in David Noble’s Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation, another landmark publication included in the Mossman collection. Published in 1984, it was therefore purchased by the Schulich librarians with the Mossman endowment, rather than by Mossman himself (since his collection was donated to McGill in 1974).

In Forces of Production, Noble traces the way that machining advances in the 20th century were in large part motivated by the exacting precision required to manufacture cutting-edge aircraft during the Cold War. Automated milling machines, now called CNC (computer numerical control) and CAD/CAM (computer assisted design / computer assisted machining) was an area of high research investment, resulting in dozens of electrical and electronic inventions which were easily exported (like some of the first analog/digital converter hardware architectures and prototypes) to a variety of other fields. Also in the Mossman, Forces of Production has the call number TJ1189 N63 1984:

T: Technology
  J: Mechanical engineering and machinery
    1189: Numerical control of machine tools

Interestingly, TJ14 is a category for philosophy and history of machinery. The decision that lead a social history of automation to not be under this subheading are lost to the circumstance of the cataloguer at the Library of Congress that made that decision. TJ1189 is not an illogical choice, and this simply highlights that knowledge classification systems always contain ambiguities that can only be addressed through experience, rather than simple common sense. 

From Noble’s book we may want to consider histories of shop machinery prior to the adoption of CNC technology. Here Mossman collection text, Robert Woodbury’s 1960 History of the Milling Machine; a Study in Technical Development (TJ1225 W6 1960) is another interesting reference: 

T: Technology
   J: Mechanical engineering and machinery
     1225: Machine Shops and Machine Shop Practice - General Works

From there we may want some additional context on the geopolitical conditions of the cold war and their impact on scientific and technological policies. Audra J. Wolfe’s Competing With the Soviets: Science, Technology and the State in Cold War America (2013)is a concise, clear and extremely informative summary of those exact topics. It is not in the Mossman collection, but it is clearly relevant to the history of science as a research discipline. From a collection development perspective, the Mossman is an interesting, specialized subset of the Schulich catalogue that does not include all the references which might fall under its purview (being tagged with the Mossman uniform title is more dependent on whether or not the Mossman endowment fund was used to purchase the resource). Furthermore, Competing with the Soviets call number is squarely in the sciences, as part of its specialized history subheading: 

Q: Science
   127: History, by region or country 
         U: United States

If we are looking for something more specific to Canada, we might appreciate the work of Edward Jones-Imhotep, whose 2017 book The Unreliable Nation: Hostile Nature and Technological Failure in the Cold War closely examines the unique conditions which shaped Canada’s scientific research policy in the same period. Although only available at McGill as an ebook, a paper copy is listed at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology’s library under the call number T23 A1 J66 2017:

T: Technology
  23: History, Special Regions or Countries: Canada

Overall, this illustrates the LCSH system’s approach to classification of interdisciplinary topics. Although Jones-Imhotep work is clearly about technology, and T23 is a meaningful and helpful cataloguing heading for it, it is not entirely unrelated to science, and could easily have been part of the Mossman Collection, even as an ebook.

When doing a literature review for a new subject, it is always informative to keep track of the additional labels entries are tagged with, often drawing from multiple cataloguing systems. Cataloguing librarians know very well that only giving one label is rarely a fair representation of our complex thoughts and rich publications, and this is why additional labels are attributed to each entry. For example, with Jones-Imhotep’s book in the Sofia catalogue:

A screenshot from a catalogue record showing subject headings.

All of these are hyperlinked so that books with that tag are just a click away. Keep in mind, too, that history and historiography of science and its many connected disciplines are active projects with lively communities in constant change!

To learn more on the topics in this post, the articles below will provide you with extensive context and additional examples. They are all accessible through Sofia as well.

  • Barr, Zachary, Alex S. Ratowt, and Stephen P. Weldon. 2024. “The Isis Bibliography: Information Practices from Sarton’s Vision to the Digital Age.” Isis 115 (3): 491–502. https://doi.org/10.1086/731408.
  • Hérubel, Jean-Pierre V. M. 2006. “Clio’s View of the History of Science: A Preliminary Bibliometric Appreciation.” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 24 (2): 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1300/J103v24n02_03.
  • ———. 2007. “Periodizations and History of Science: A Perspective and Approach for Collections.” Collection Management 31 (3): 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1300/J105v31n03_05.
  • Stone, Alva T. 2000. “The LCSH Century: A Brief History of the Library of Congress Subject Headings, and Introduction to the Centennial Essays.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 29 (1–2): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1300/J104v29n01_01.
  • Whitrow, Magda. 1964. “Classification Schemes for the History of Science.” Journal of Documentation 20 (3): 120–36. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026344.

Ezra J. Teboul

Evidence-Based Medicine and the Trump Administration

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If you have taken or are currently taking any kind of class in the health sciences at McGill, you will have probably heard about a term called Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) or Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). EBP/EBM is about “integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from a systematic search.”1 As the librarian for Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME), I am embedded in the EBM portion of first year courses, where we often show students this diagram: 

This a classic visual representation of Evidence-Based Medicine and shows how EBM sits at the intersection of three essential components:

  • Clinical Expertise: this refers to the clinician’s own skills, knowledge and past experiences in treating patients 
  • Best Evidence: this refers to the most current and relevant research available, often from rigorous clinical trials and systematic reviews
  • Patient Preferences and Values: these refer to the patient’s own experiences, concerns, needs and cultural beliefs that they bring to the encounter.

If any one of these elements is missing or ignored, clinical decision making becomes less effective and the quality of care you are providing diminishes. That’s why it’s so important to consider the broader context, including how recent political shifts – regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum – have influenced the way we understand, access and apply evidence in healthcare today. 

Since arriving in office back in 2016, the Trump Administration has issued executive decisions that pose a serious threat to one of the EBM elements – Best Evidence. And if you’re thinking that it doesn’t matter because we’re in Canada, think again. These decisions have implications on a global scale.

Politicization and Decimation of Public Health Agencies

Public health is a pretty self-explanatory concept – it’s all about the protection of people in the community, aimed at promoting healthy behaviours, preventing disease and protecting the public. In Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada work together to keep us healthy. The United States has several agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among others. 

When public health agencies and departments are politicized, the credibility of health recommendations can be undermined, leading to public mistrust, confusion among healthcare providers, and challenges in maintaining evidence-based practice.

In December of 2017, The Washington Post reported that the CDC was given a list of words that were forbidden, including “evidence-based” and “science-based”.2 I don’t know about you, but personally I don’t think a person who doesn’t trust the word science instills a lot of confidence. Back in the 2020, Trump-appointed HHS officials tried to block the CDC from releasing data in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) because the administration believed the CDC used language that could hurt the president’s chances for re-election.3 Thousands of public health officials rely on that report to inform their own practice and decisions in their communities.

More recently, in the early months of 2025, Trump gutted key health agencies, slashing funding and firing staff at an alarming rate. Newly appointed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 10 thousand jobs were being cut at HHS alone. Additional cuts were reported at the CDC, the FDA, and the Agency for Health Research and Quality, which lost half its staff.4

Among those who were unceremoniously fired was Carrie Price (not that Carey Price, Habs fans…), a Biomedical Librarian at the National Institutes of Health. Her post on LinkedIn went viral, with hundreds of librarians who work with clinicians supporting her and sounding the alarm about the importance of librarians for founding sound research. 

Public health works best when smart, dedicated people — researchers, clinicians, librarians, and public health officials — have the tools and support they need to keep us safe. When funding gets slashed and expertise gets sidelined, it’s not just bad for science — it’s bad for everyone. Evidence-based practice relies on good information, and good information doesn’t just appear out of thin air. It’s built by teams of people working behind the scenes, often quietly and carefully, to make sure what you hear from your doctor, pharmacist, or public health office is actually trustworthy. 

Changes in Research Priorities and Funding

Politics doesn’t just shape laws; it also shapes what kind of science is conducted. When federal funding priorities shift, so do research agendas at health agencies. One administration might pour money into a certain disease, while the next focuses almost entirely on another, or cuts programs altogether. An administration’s research priorities play a role in which questions get answered, which problems get solved, and which communities get left behind.

The Trump administration has never been a fan of climate change. The words themselves make people in the White House duck for cover. Through a series of executive decisions, Trump has pulled back climate change funding, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and rolling back pollution and fossil fuel regulations, a decision which has major implications for respiratory diseases and weather-related health crises.5

Another thing the Trump administration doesn’t like: gender. They have made it very clear that they will not be spending money on research related to sexual and gender minorities, putting the health of these groups at risk. All transgender-related research was halted at the NIH6 and suddenly, scientists like Theo Beltrán and Jace Flatt, who have spent decades dedicating their lives to these fields, found themselves in limbo. 

So what does this have to do with evidence-based medicine? A lot, actually. EBM depends on having high-quality, up-to-date research to guide decisions. But if certain areas of science aren’t being funded, that evidence might not exist in the first place. If climate-related health risks or gender-related topics aren’t being studied, clinicians are left with gaps in the evidence and that makes it harder to give patients the best possible care. If the research isn’t there, the “best available evidence” part of EBM starts to fall apart.

Inconsistent Guidelines

A clinical practice guideline is a set of evidence-based recommendations designed to help healthcare professionals make informed decisions. They’re developed by experts, who systematically review the best available evidence to help guide clinicians to what’s most likely to work, what to look for, alternate options, etc. They help with the standardization of care in that they ensure that patients receive consistent and high-quality treatment no matter where they are and who is treating them. But what happens when these guidelines collide with politics? 

Reproductive healthcare is a prime example. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, clinicians in many U.S. states have found themselves caught between evidence-based recommendations and restrictive state laws. In some cases, treatment for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies has been delayed out of fear of legal repercussions, even when the medical guidelines are clear and the patient’s health is at risk.7 

Organizations like The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the World Health Organization (WHO) continue to publish guidance that supports timely, patient-centered care, but in politically charged environments, following those recommendations isn’t always possible. The result is a broken system where the quality of care can depend more on geography than science, a situation that undermines the very foundation of evidence-based medicine.

While these developments are happening south of the border, they still have implications here in Canada. Canadian clinicians and researchers often rely on U.S.-based studies, guidelines, and collaborations. When reproductive health research is restricted or politicized in the U.S., it can slow progress for everyone. Even though abortion remains legal in Canada, access varies widely by province, and we’re not immune to political pressure. These moments remind us how important it is to protect evidence-based guidelines and ensure healthcare decisions stay grounded in science, not ideology.

Final Thoughts

At the heart of it, evidence-based medicine is about trust — trust that the research behind our care is solid, that guidelines are grounded in good data, and that health decisions are made with patients’ well-being in mind. Librarians are a big part of that picture: we help students learn how to find reliable evidence, support clinicians in staying current, and quietly make sure the information pipeline runs smoothly. When politics starts to mess with science, things can get murky.

The good news is that there are still a lot of people, from researchers to clinicians to librarians, working hard to keep the evidence strong and the science honest! Even when it might seem like we’re on shaky ground, the foundation of EBM is still standing — and we’re here to help keep it that way.

  1. Sackett, D. L., Rosenberg, W. M., Gray, J. A., Haynes, R. B., & Richardson, W. S. (1996). Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 312(7023), 71–72. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.312.7023.71 ↩︎
  2. Sun, L. H., & Eilperin, J. (2017). CDC gets list of forbidden words: Fetus, transgender, diversity: Agency analysts are told to avoid these 7 banned words and phrases in budget documents. Washington, D.C. ↩︎
  3. Dyer, O. (2020). Trump appointees tamper with renowned CDC publication, claiming that scientists are trying to “hurt the president”. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 370, 1–2. ↩︎
  4. Looi, M.-K. (2025). Trump’s 10 000 job cuts spark chaos in US health services. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 389, r682. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r682 ↩︎
  5. Wagatsuma, K. (2025). Implications of President Trump’s Second Term Executive Orders on Global and Public Health. International Journal of Public Health, 70. https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2025.1608402 ↩︎
  6. Kozlov, M. Exclusive: Trump White House directs NIH to study’regret’after transgender people transition. Nature. ↩︎
  7. Roper, K. L., Robbins, S. J., Day, P., Shih, G., & Kale, N. (2024). Impact of State Abortion Policies on Family Medicine Practice and Training After Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Annals of Family Medicine, 22(6), 492–501. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.3183 ↩︎

TISED Sustainability Changemakers Showcase Happening Tomorrow!

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Want to learn about all the exciting research that McGill students in engineering are doing on sustainability topics? Tomorrow, attend the Sustainability Changemakers Showcase, an event at the Faculty Club highlighting graduate student research on sustainability. It is being hosted by TISED, the Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design, where researchers and students are working to become a hub of green innovation and a centre of excellence both locally in Montréal, Québec and worldwide. The event is open to the public. To register and learn more about the speakers, please consult the registration page . To get a sneak preview of the speakers in action, you can check out brief talks they gave on their research last December.

If you’re interested in joining these researchers in designing the green solutions to engineering problems that our world needs, TISED is now accepting admissions to their new masters in Sustainability in Engineering and Design program. The deadline for fall has been extended until Apr. 1 for US candidates and June 21 for Canadian ones.

Attend tomorrow’s talks and learn all about what TISED graduate student work looks like in action!

Celebrating Science Literacy @ McGill

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Science Literacy @ McGill Week is around the corner! From February 22 to 28, we will delve into this year’s theme, From Lab to Life and explore science in the everyday. There is a wide range of events planned including tours of the Maude Abbott Medical Museum and the McGill Physics Collections, a look into ancient Egyptian animal mummies from the Redpath Museum, Science History Treasures in McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections, and much more. The details of the various events are listed below. We hope to see you there!

Selected works by Black scientists from McGill – the moth of February

  • In honour of Black History Month, we are proud to highlight the works of Black scientists within the McGill community. From exploring structural racism in minority health research to fostering inclusion in scientific societies; from a poem about Canadian-Caribbean immigrants experiences to the effects of maternal mental health on child development, each work pushes the boundaries of knowledge within STEMM. As part of Science Literacy @ McGill, we invite you to join us in celebrating the remarkable achievements of Black scientists and the lasting influence of their work on society.

Citizen science: The story of DRAW (Data Rescue: Archives and Weather) – Monday, Feb 24th, 12:30 to 13:30

  • Follow the  journey from analogue McGill Observatory records to data sets and life on a web site.

What is inside the bundle? A study on the ancient Egyptian animal mummies from the Redpath Museum – Tuesday, Feb 25th, 10:30 to 11:30

  • With Natalie Reznikov, Assistant Professor in the Department of Bio-engineering, whose research focusses on biomineralization — the study of structure-function relationships, formation and biomechanics of bone, teeth, eggshells, and mollusk shells.

Old books & new research: Uncovering the forgotten work of Mary Hinckley to answer new ecological questions (hybrid) – Tuesday, Feb 25th, 12:00 to 13:00

  • Dr. Jessica Ford set out to determine what toad tadpoles were eating and how they impacted the environment, and in the process, came across unexpected results. Join us to hear about how old, obscure scientific papers can be vital in answering new research questions.

Tour of the Maude Abbott Medical Museum – Wednesday, Feb 26th, 14:30 to 15:30

  • A fascinating repository of materials dating from the early 19th century that documents the study and practice of Medicine at McGill University and its associated teaching hospitals.

Tour the Rutherford Museum and McPherson Collection with Curator, Professor J. Barrette. – Thursday, Feb 27th, 12:30 to 13:30

  • The Rutherford Museum contains a collection of the original apparatus used by Ernest Rutherford to investigate the newly-discovered phenomenon of radioactivity when he was Professor of Experimental Physics at McGill from 1898 till 1907. The McPherson Collection is comprised of antique physical instruments and apparatus dating from the mid-19th century to about 1920, many of them used in teaching and scientific research at McGill.

Science History Treasures in McGill’s Rare Books & Special Collections – Friday, Feb 28th, 13:00 to 16:00 drop in anytime

  • From the earliest illustrated natural history encyclopedia to Isaac Newton’s annotated copy of Opticks, our collections span the evolution of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. Join us for a rare chance to marvel at medieval manuscripts, early printed books, original artwork, and other highlights from our history of science collections.

VIRTUAL Tour of Schulich Library – Friday, Feb 28th, 12:30 to 13:30

  • Housed in a 130-year-old building, the library has recently undergone a complete restoration that thoughtfully integrates historic charm with the latest technology, making it a true gem on our campus. Discover why the Schulich Library is a central hub for scientific learning and research in the University!

Visit the full list of Science Literacy @ McGill Week page for details and locations.

We hope to see you there!

What’s New in MeSH: 2025 Updates to Medical Subject Headings

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Every year, a team at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Bethesda, Maryland, reviews their subject headings to ensure accuracy, relevancy and timeliness. This includes purging the list of outdated terms, adding any new terms that they’ve deemed important (think, Covid in 2020…), and updating the language of terms. To date, there are over 30,000 MeSH terms to choose from! Let’s take a look at some of the new additions:

Artificial Intelligence Craze: AI is EVERYWHERE! No one is immune, even the National Library of Medicine! It makes sense that they would choose to expand the subject headings surrounding AI as it is slowly permeating every aspect of our lives, even healthcare. The new and improved Artificial Intelligence MeSH term now has narrower terms associated with it, notably Intelligent Systems, Prediction Methods, Machine, Large Language Models, Generative Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Analysis, Machine.

Mother Earth: Other than replacing the words peas, lettuce, chicory and ginger with their government names (Pisum sativum, Lactuca, Cichorium intybus and Zingiber officinale, respectively, in case you were wondering), the NLM has done some work surrounding the environment and climate change. They’ve added the term Climate Anxiety (the “persistent and difficult to control psychological distress over climate change” that you feel, too, right?) and updated terms to include severe phenomena that are becoming all too common, like Wildfires. I wonder if walking in a forest will cure any of my anxiety? I should search PubMed! And when I do, I’ll be sure to include the new Forest Therapy MeSH term in my search string.

Focus on People: There has been a move towards describing professions in terms of the people who do them, not just the discipline itself. Believe it or not, until recently, Psychologists was not its own MeSH term. The same goes for Personal Trainers, Frontline Workers and Opticians. They’ve also expanded the list of people in general to include those that might require care or present differently because of their occupations (Truck Drivers), because of immunization status (Unvaccinated Persons), or because of social circumstances (Battered Men).

As part of this focus on people, the NLM, consistently criticized for their outdated and restrictive terminology, has expanded and reworded their list of population groups, including entry terms that map to subject headings. For example, if I search for the Himba people, I will be redirected to Southern African People, or if I search for Korean people, I’ll be brought to East Asian People. They have done away with insensitive descriptors for Black People and Asian People (formerly just Blacks and Asians) and reworked the definition of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

As far as important changes go, the NLM tries to keep up with updated terminology. Language changes rapidly, and as we learn and become more sensitive and inclusive in our everyday communications, the language we use to describe articles should reflect that growth. Here are some noteworthy changes:

OLD TERMUPDATED TERM
Disabled PersonsPersons with Disabilities
Persons with Mental DisabilitiesPersons with Intellectual Disabilities
Sex Reassignment ProceduresGender-Affirming Procedures
Sex Reassignment SurgeryGender-Affirming Surgery
Homeless PersonsIll-Housed Persons
Surrogate MothersGestational Carriers
Pregnant WomenPregnant People

Have you come across a MeSH term that you think needs changing? Or have you tried to find a MeSH term that doesn’t exist but you think it should? The NLM welcomes feedback! You can make suggestions here.

Still not sure why you should be searching using subject headings? We have a page for you! Check out the McGill Libraries Health Sciences Research Tips to get the answer to that question and many more!

What’s my favourite MeSH term, you ask? This year, MeSH added a term for Lacrosse. For all your lacrosse-related research. It’s not so much the term, but the fact that the NLM took the time to research the sport and include the rules in the definition. I’ve seen diseases described with less accuracy. Big lacrosse fans over at the National Library of Medicine, it seems…

Enhanced Visibility of Engineering Standards at Schulich Library!

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logos of standards-producing organizations

Schulich Library now has a collection of engineering standards in printed format that is browsable within the library catalogue! It is called the Schulich Library Standards Collection and it currently contains over 200 standards and growing. You can access the collection at: Schulich Library Standards Collection.

What are engineering standards anyway? They are very important technical documents that allow engineers to design products and processes that are high-quality and safe. They are produced by industry experts, academics and others brought together by professional organizations, non-profits and government organizations, like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and many others.

To borrow a standard from the new collection, please make note of the item’s call number and ask for it at the Schulich Library service desk on the main floor. You can also search for a standard produced by a specific organization by accessing the collection and modifying the search string at the top of the screen to include the organization’s name. For example, to search the ASME standards in the new collection, add ASME to the existing search string: ut: Schulich Library Standards Collection. So your search would look like this: ASME AND ut: Schulich Library Standards Collection.

Please note, most standards held at McGill Libraries are available in printed format only, with the exception of engineering standards produced by select organizations like IEEE. Also, engineering standards are one of the rare item types that generally cannot be request through the Libraries’ interlibrary loans service.

To find out more about the new collection and all the engineering standards available through McGill Libraries, including a list of standard-issuing organizations from which McGill Libraries have standards, please see: McGill Libraries’ Patents, Standards, and Technical Reports Research Guide or email us at schulich.library@mcgill.ca

If you would like the staff at McGill Libraries to consider purchasing a standard for the new collection, please use the email options on the right-hand side of the page to contact the Schulich Librarians for physical sciences and engineering topics and the Macdonald Campus Librarians for agricultural, environmental science, nutrition and parasitology topics. Please keep in mind that standards normally take a few weeks to be acquired and made accessible.

SciFree – New McGill Libraries’ search tool for locating APC waivers and discounts

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As you may have seen recently in McGill’s What’s New, McGill Libraries has launched a new search tool called SciFree that can help you efficiently find which journals offer waivers and discounts to McGill researchers on Article Processing Charges (APCs) for publishing open access. You’ll find information about the tool and can search it here: Announcing SciFree . Unlike the information that the McGill Libraries was previously providing on the webpage on Article Processing Charge Support that only supplied details on APCs at the publisher level (table at the bottom of the page), the new search tool simplifies the process of finding journals that offer waivers and discounts. This new tool can help you make informed decisions about what journals will allow you to publish open-access in as cost-effective a manner as possible. Simply search the journal name in SciFree to determine if there are waivers or discounts available to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact schulich.library@mcgill.ca and we will be happy to help!

SciFree

Whatcha Readin’? Schulich Library Staff Picks

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Welcome back to campus! We hope you enjoyed your summer and are ready for another great semester! How was our summer? So great, thanks for asking! We got some reading done and want to share our favourites with you! All these books are available to borrow through our catalog. While you’re on campus, stop by the Schulich Library and take a look at some of our other picks!

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

Suggested by Andrea Quaiattini, Health Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Medicine, Postgraduate Medical Education and Indigenous Health

“There is grandeur in this view of life… if you can’t see, shame on you.” 

“David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.”

Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

Suggested by Tara Mawhinney, Physical Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, and Civil and Mechanical Engineering

“In her acclaimed novels, Susan Vreeland has given us portraits of painting and life that are as dazzling as their artistic subjects. Now, in The Forest Lover she traces the courageous life and career of Emily Carr, who, more than Georgia O’Keeffe or Frida Kahlo, blazed a path for modern women artists. Overcoming the confines of Victorian culture, Carr became a major force in modern art by capturing an untamed British Columbia and its indigenous peoples just before industrialization changed them forever. From illegal potlatches in tribal communities to artists studios in pre World War I Paris, Vreeland tells her story with gusto and suspense, giving us a glorious novel that will appeal to lovers of art, native cultures, and lush historical fiction.”

“Maybe that’s what love was — walking willingly into the unknown for the sake of the other.”

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Suggest by Sabine Calleja, Health Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Nursing and Palliative Care

“The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.”

“The opioid crisis is, among other things, a parable about the awesome capability of private industry to subvert public institutions.” 

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Suggested by Maryam DeyhimiHaghighi, Senior Library Clerk

“Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.”

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” 

Johnny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

Suggested by Andrea Miller-Nesbitt, Life Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Anatomy & Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Biology, Environment and Genetics

My home is full of hope and ghosts.

“Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the “rez,” and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny’s world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages–and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.”

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

Suggested by Kara Sterne, Senior Library Clerk

“A young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him. Soon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs – collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threat that lies ‘just beyond the garden gate.’ And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.”

It’s not the meek who inherit the earth. The meek get kicked in the teeth.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Suggested by April Colosimo, Physical Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Math, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy

The world is changing, you know. A pity you aren’t ready to live in it.

“Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.”

The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker

Suggested by Eleni Philippopoulos, Health Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Undergraduate Medicine and LGBTQ+ Health

You’re gonna let the world happen to you, and you’re gonna love it.

“In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.

Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel’s difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon’s home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.”

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab

Suggested by Jill Boruff, Health Sciences Librarian, Liaison for Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Psychiatry and Communication Sciences & Disorders

“France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.”

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?

2SLGBTQIA+ Consumer Health Books

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Happy Pride, all! Did you know that members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community are more likely to experience health disparities than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts?1 Many members of this community say they feel uncomfortable accessing healthcare and report facing discrimination because of who they are.2 Not on our watch!

The Wendy Patrick Consumer Health Collection has books to help members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community take their health into their own hands. Here is a sample of some the books in our collection:

Naked Nutrition: An LGBTQ+ Guide to Diet and Lifestyle by Daniel O’Shaughnessy

“As a gay man living in London and working as a nutritionist, Daniel O’Shaughnessy knows that the LGBTQ+ community has specific dietary and health needs. Yet while there is huge demand for this kind of information in his private practice, there is very little reliable public information out there for the community to access. Naked Nutrition seeks to change that: it is the first LGBTQ+ focused guide to diet and lifestyle, taking an honest, inclusive and non-judgemental approach to the questions Daniel is asked most frequently. It covers a wide range of subjects, giving detailed, practical advice on matters including: weight loss and muscle gain, digestive health issues, addiction, sex, fertility, nutrition for balancing hormones while transitioning, how to eat if you have a chronic condition, and how to mitigate against the party lifestyle.”

Like a boy but not a boy : navigating life, mental health, and parenthood outside the gender binary by Andrea Bennett

“Like a Boy but Not a Boy explores author andrea bennett’s experiences with gender expectations, being a non-binary parent, and the sometimes funny and sometimes difficult task of living in a body. The book’s fourteen essays also delve incisively into the interconnected themes of mental illness, mortality, creative work, class, and bike mechanics (apparently you can learn a lot about yourself through truing a wheel).”

How to understand your gender : a practical guide for exploring who you are by Alex Iantaffi & Meg-John Barker

“Have you ever questioned your gender identity? Do you know somebody who is transgender or who identifies as non-binary? Do you ever feel confused when people talk about gender diversity? This down-to-earth guide is for anybody who wants to know more about gender, from its biology, history, and sociology to the role it plays in our relationships and interactions with family, friends, partners, and strangers. Activities throughout the book will engage people of all genders in a thoughtful, practical way, and help you understand people whose gender might be different from your own.”

I am ace: advice on living your best asexual life by Cody Daigle-Orians

“How do I know if I’m actually asexual? How do i come out as asexual? What kinds of relationships can I have as an ace person? If you are looking for answers to these questions, Cody is here to help. Within these pages lie all the advice you need as a questioning ace teen. Tackling everything from what asexuality is, the asexual spectrum, and tips on coming out, to intimacy, relationships, aphobia, and finding joy, this guide will help you better understand your asexual identity alongside deeply relatable anecdotes drawn from Cody’s personal experience. Whether you are ace, demi, gray-ace, or not sure yet, this book will give you the courage and confidence to embrace your unique self.”

Gender confirmation surgery : a guide for trans and non-binary people by Edward Whelan & Nicholas Avigdor Melamed

“With personal stories and illustrations throughout, this comprehensive resource will help you understand the full range of surgical options available. Information and advice about each procedure is offered, including planning and recovery, sexual health and fertility, and insight into what to expect in the years following an operation. This is essential reading for any trans or non-binary person considering gender confirmation surgery and will help you make the decision that’s right for you”

Am I trans enough? : how to overcome your doubts and find your authentic self by Alo Johnston

“Alo Johnston has been where you are. From watching every transition story on YouTube and navigating online message boards for answers to finally starting testosterone and transitioning himself, he now walks alongside you every step of the way to guide you towards acceptance of who you truly are. Born out of thousands of hours of research and conversations with hundreds of trans people, Am I Trans Enough? digs deep into internalized transphobia and the historical narratives that fuel it. It unveils what happens after you come out, or begin questioning living as a trans person, in a world that works against you. Use this book as a space to engage with your fears and explore your doubts without the pressure of needing to be a perfect trans representative. If you are just beginning your trans journey, are twenty years into transition or have no idea if you are even trans at all, this book will help you to become your most authentic self”

You can check out these books and many others on the main floor of the library. You can also visit our catalog to browse more titles in the Wendy Patrick Consumer Health Collection.

Have a safe and happy Pride! From the staff at the Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering

  1. Alliance for Healthier Communities. 2SLGBTQ+. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2024, from https://www.allianceon.org/2SLGBTQ#:~:text=Two%20Spirit%2C%20Lesbian%2C%20Gay
    %2C,to%20stigma%2C%20discrimination%20and%20social ↩︎
  2. Mills, S., Dion, M., Thompson-Blum, D., Borst, C., & Diemert, J. (2019). Mapping the Void: Two-Spirit and LGBTIQ+ Experiences in Hamilton. ↩︎

Health Sciences Librarian-Approved Tools: Yale MeSH Analyzer

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Sometimes, the search process happens backwards. What I mean by that is that you may find yourself with a stack of articles that you know you want to include in your review, but are then tasked with coming up with the search that will generate these articles and articles like them. The Yale MeSH Analyzer is here to facilitate the task and help you come up with a great list of search terms.

Developed by the team at the Yale University Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, this tool allows you to analyze those perfect articles and extract the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and keywords. This is definitely quicker than scanning each article manually.

Here’s how it works! You’ll be asked to enter the PubMed Identification Numbers (PMIDs) for your articles. You can find these on the individual article pages on PubMed:

You can enter up to 20 PMIDs at once for the tool to analyze. Once you’ve entered all your articles, the Yale MeSH analyzer will spit out a handy table, either online or in an downloadable Excel sheet, that allows you to see what MeSH terms the articles have been tagged with. And, despite what the name suggests, it isn’t limited to MeSH terms. The tool will also give you a list of keywords that the authors have used to describe their own articles.

Let’s take a look at an example: A student is interested in looking at experiences of young menstruating individuals in low-income countries and rural areas. She has managed to find four articles through her limited Google search, but would like to build a more comprehensive search in a few medical databases.

Want to follow along? Access the Yale MeSH Analyzer here. The PMIDs of the articles are as follows:

  • 30611223
  • 24244435
  • 29485336
  • 26436841

This is what the MeSH Analyzer produces for her (click on the image to enlarge it):

All four of the articles are tagged with the MeSH term Menstruation, so that’s a pretty good indication that our student should include it in her search! But one of the articles is also tagged with Menarche and that’s something that our student hadn’t thought to include. Other MeSH terms to think about are Rural Populations, Sanitation and Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice.

The author keywords are also telling:

One article mentions Menstrual hygiene management and the other Menstrual hygiene products. This gives you insight into the various ways different researchers are referring to the same concept. In addition, it allows you to parse your search. Instead of writing every iteration, you can choose to just add menstrual hygiene as a term to ensure that you’re picking up all the varieties.

Congratulations! You now have a great foundation on which to build your search!

Try the Yale MeSH Analyzer for yourself!