Rehousing psychiatry collections at the Oskar Diethelm Library.

FAIN: PG-271750-20

Joan & Sanford I.Weill Medical College of Cornell University (New York, NY 10065-4805)
George J. Makari (Project Director: January 2020 to January 2023)

The purchase of preservation supplies to rehouse 612 feet of archival materials, which are part of the library’s 1,500 linear feet of archives documenting the history of psychiatry. Materials include the papers of influential figures, such as Thomas Salmon and Clifford and Clara Beers, as well as the records of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (1909-1966), which are consulted regularly by historians, especially around the topic of World War I veterans.  Other collections include items from mental health advocates, Dorothea Dix, Thomas Kirkbride, and Isaac Ray, as well as from Donald Winnicott, the British physician who was internationally recognized for his work in pediatric psychiatry and invented the term “transitional object” (e.g. blanket or teddy bear).  Rehousing the materials would be done in tandem with ongoing efforts to update the related finding aids, which would make the collections easier to discover by the many students, scholars, and physicians who conduct research at the library.

The project will support the preservation of historically significant materials from the processed collections at the Oskar Diethelm Library at Weill Cornell Medical College''s DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry. The majority of the collections that have been described were processed over 30 years ago and primarily stored in cardboard boxes even after processing. Because of this, new boxes and folders are needed for the processed collections, which would be covered by the requested funds from this grant. The current boxes are mostly cardboard, not acid-free, and not properly filled, which has caused serious damage through bending and tearing of materials. In addition, the folders are either not acid-free or have deteriorated to the point of needing replacement. The grant would cover the purchase of acid-free boxes and folders to rehouse these collections.