The Wellcome Library has returned to its original location at 183 Euston Road. Its Head, Frances Norton, talks about new features of the collection.
Anna Winterbottom
The Wellcome Library, and its head, Frances Norton.
The Wellcome Library occupies two floors of the imposing Wellcome Collection building, a new £30 m cultural venue opening in June of this year. It was built from the diverse collection of Henry Wellcome (1853–1936) and first opened to the public in 1949. It is the largest resource of medical history in Europe, comprising 750,000 books, a film and audio collection of 2500 titles, 600 archival collections and more than 250,000 paintings, prints and photographs. The facilities of the refurbished Library – including a reading room of rare materials and access to electronic resources through WiFi and public terminals – help readers tap into this wealth of medical knowledge.
The library had been housed nearby at 210 Euston Road during the refurbishment. It was officially re-opened on 18 April by author Sebastian Faulks, who found the library indispensable for his new novel, Human Traces, which explores the psychological effects of war.
Frances Norton was appointed head of the library in 2004, having previously worked at Leeds University. She talks about the diverse audience the library attracts.
While our established users are academic historians of medicine, we are already inspiring a wider range of people with our location within the new Wellcome Trust building. For example, those who come to the galleries and cultural events and want to find out more can do so in the library. We have a number of materials that will be inspiring to the art and design and creative industries, for example, the collection of 3000 AIDS posters. We also have a lot of resources that publishers and educationalists could make use of and will target teachers with our digital resources and outreach projects.
The range of digitalisation projects coming out of the new library is particularly impressive, including over 160,000 images online. These range from the first depiction of acupuncture to reach the West to the latest biomedical imaging. The ‘Uncover’ project, a touch-screen installation launching in June, will also provide an innovative and highly visual way into the collection. According to Frances, this is just the beginning.
The digitisation of images is an ongoing project, we actually have two and a half million items in the collections to pick from! All those for which the library holds the copyright will be made available under Creative Commons licenses. The Uncover exhibit will allow you to select items, turn them around and hear in-depth commentary from experts.
The Wellcome Library has a rich collection of Asian materials, housing 12,000 manuscripts, and 4000 books. Frances describes the role specialists in non-Western manuscripts will play in the new library.
Starting in September, we will have world experts coming in to take academic groups on journeys through the Persian, Japanese and Sanskrit manuscripts, looking at palaeography and readings of the texts. There will also be a ‘viewing room’ where groups participate in hands-on workshops finding out about rare books and images.
Finally, Frances talks about new material, and how the library is adjusting to accommodate modern scientific data.
We have around 4000 items coming into the library every year. As well as the published material, we emphasise collecting unique items; like medical ephemera, pictorial representations and the stories of biomedical scientists. We are engaging with ‘born’ digital material, collecting websites in particular.
The broad interests of founder Henry Wellcome will continue to be reflected in the growing collection of the Wellcome Library. The story continues in June, when this scholarly resource will be complemented by events, exhibitions, café and conference centre.
Images are copyright, The Wellcome Trust.