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Sep
29
Posted by Margot M on September 29th, 2023
Posted in: Public Health
Tags: community engagement, National Library of Medicine, travel exhibits
Guest blog post by Kristen Sheridan, MSLIS.
The Alumni Medical Library is currently hosting a National Library of Medicine traveling exhibit, Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics and Culture, from September 15 to October 20, 2023. We have been so fortunate to receive this traveling exhibit and to have the opportunity to do in person and virtual programming to support this exhibit while it is here on Boston University’s Medical Campus.
The library hosted our annual fall Open House and were excited to have the exhibit on display during this event. We included guided tours through the exhibit, access to computers and an iPad for the digital gallery, and staff members available near the panels to discuss the exhibit with our patrons. It was a lovely afternoon which sparked thoughtful conversations amongst library staff and our community.
Education and Information Services Librarian stands in front of the 12 paneled traveling exhibit.
The library was able to share some archival materials that helped to support the traveling exhibit, including what is believed to be the first clinical manual on HIV/AIDS. In the 1980s, clinicians at Boston City Hospital (today’s Boston Medical Center) caring for patients with AIDS/HIV infection, recognizing the urgency of the need, wrote what is believed to be the first clinical manual on the topic titled, Clinical Manual for Care of the Adult Patient with HIV Infection, edited by Howard Libman, M.D., and Robert A. Witzburg, M.D., in 1990. Initially produced in 1988, the manual was first presented in a 3-ring binder to allow for the insertion of mailed updates that the authors planned to make available and accessible to those in the community and beyond.
The authors paid out-of-pocket for a print run in 1990, using a loan from Dr. Alan Cohen, the Chair of the Department of Medicine. The book was sold out of the trunk of a car for $10 at hospitals around the Boston area, as well as mailed more widely, and was supplemented by an updated version in 1991. A few years later, publisher Little, Brown and Company produced a 2nd edition in 1993, titled HIV Infection, A Clinical Manual, which became a staple text of HIV/AIDS clinical care through the 1990s, with a 3rd edition and a Spanish-language edition published in 1996. These works show how BU faculty were closely involved with evidence-based patient care in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, in the same spirit that the BU Medical Campus community continues to work on the front lines of critical health care issues today.
A’Llyn Ettien, Head of Resource Sharing and Discovery, with some of the collection from the Alumni Medical Library Archives, and the personal collection of author Robert Witzburg, M.D., Emeritus Professor of General Internal Medicine, Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine at Boston University.
Kristen, who has curated the library’s Graphic Medicine collection, was looking for ways to incorporate the traveling exhibit into promoting the library collection. The library was able to purchase multiple sets of bilingual graphic novels and comics to add to the collection, and we also created a book display that included some of these titles as well as other HIV/AIDS titles. The book display exhibit is bilingual and offers QR codes that can be scanned to bring you more information on the exhibit and collection.
The library wanted to host a speaker event for our community to complement and highlight the traveling exhibit and contribute to HIV/AIDS conversations, as we have many researchers here at BU that teach and research HIV/AIDS locally and globally. We were so lucky to host a virtual speaker event with MK Czerwiec, author of the graphic novel, Taking Turns: Stories of HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371, a co-author of Graphic Medicine Manifesto and editor of the two-time Eisner Award winning Menopause: A Comic Treatment.
The bilingual book display with informational QR codes that we created to support the traveling exhibit and promote our diverse print collection.
MK is a nurse, cartoonist, educator, and co-founder of the field of Graphic Medicine. Her work attempts to use the medium of comics to help make challenging situations somewhat easier. In her virtual presentation, MK discussed how her work as a nurse on a dedicated HIV/AIDS care unit directly led her to the field of graphic medicine, and why comics are the perfect medium for sharing the story of this global epidemic in her book Taking Turns: Stories of HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371.
MK seamlessly wove comics and materials from the Surviving and Thriving exhibit into her presentation, and mentioned she was lucky enough to view in person some of the ephemera and materials included in the exhibit at the National Library of Medicine a few years ago. MK’s thought provoking and creative presentation was such an excellent tie into the traveling exhibit, and we were so fortunate to learn from MK’s experiences and expertise in storytelling of visual narratives in the medical humanities.
Promotional flyer the library made to promote MK’s virtual speaker event.
Overall, the Alumni Medical Library has had such an amazing experience hosting this traveling exhibit and are eagerly looking forward to continuing our partnership with the NLM and host another exhibit next year.
ABOUT Margot M