The Veterinary Librarian as Keeper of the Veterinary Documentary Heritage

Abstract

In earlier times it was taken for granted that a librarian was an historian or someone with knowledge in cultural history or book history. This applied especially to libraries for the humanities, but not exclusively. Also medical libraries were often headed by men who contributed to the field of medical history. I only have to mention the names of Fielding H. Garrison (1870–1935), librarian at the forerunner of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, the Surgeon General’s Library, who — next to his work at the first Index Medicus — wrote, among others, the standardwork An introduction to the history of medicine, or that of an other army surgeon John Shaw Billings (1838–1913), the originator of Index Medicus, who later founded the New York Public Library. In France we had Charles Wickersheimer (1880–1965), librarian of the Université de Strassbourg, author of La médecine et les médecins en France à l’époque de la Renaissance, and in Paris the three generations Hahn, librarians of the Faculté de Médecine, that had the largest medical library in the world before the rise of the Library of the Surgeon General in Washington; by their publications many treasures in their custody were disclosed. As examples in England I would like to mention Leslie T. Morton, librarian of the National Institute of Medical Research, whose Annotated checklist of texts illustrating the history of medicine has to be under reach of hands of every medical and veterinary librarian, and next to him Frederick Poynter (1908- ), who was the librarian of the Wellcome Institute, and who is mainly known for his bibliographic work, amongst others for compiling the intricate bibliography of the most prolific 17th century English veterinary author Gervaise Markham.