1 line
No EOL
19 KiB
Text
1 line
No EOL
19 KiB
Text
{"id":28341,"date":"2024-01-25T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=28341"},"modified":"2024-02-16T14:29:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T19:29:34","slug":"making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america-the-pamphlet-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2024\/01\/25\/making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america-the-pamphlet-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the Greatest Medical Library in America: The Pamphlet Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A new online exhibition, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nlm.nih.gov\/exhibition\/making-the-greatest-medical-library\/index.html\">Making the Greatest Medical Library in America<\/a><em>, showcases a selection of 19th century pamphlets acquired early in the NLM\u2019s history from the private library of renowned French physician Claude Bernard. The exhibition also celebrates the NLM\u2019s work collecting and preserving the world\u2019s medical knowledge. This post is the first in a series that expands upon topics explored in the exhibition.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_28358\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28358\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"28358\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2024\/01\/25\/making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america-the-pamphlet-press\/ob13304_volumes\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1200,800\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"5.6","credit":"","camera":"NIKON D3100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1567093075","copyright":"","focal_length":"18","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.008","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"OB13304_volumes\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"<p>sdfsfdsfsefsefes<\/p>\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?fit=840%2C560&ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-28358 size-large\" title=\"Claude Bernard's private library of medical pamphlets reflects his commanding role at the epicenter of Western medicine in his time\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?resize=840%2C560&ssl=1\" alt=\"A photograph of several bound volumes of books, one of which is open\" width=\"840\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?resize=840%2C560&ssl=1 840w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13304_volumes.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28358\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volumes of medical pamphlets collected by renowned French physician Claude Bernard, 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"ui-provider ed bet beu bev bew bex bey bez bfa bfb bfc bfd bfe bff bfg bfh bfi bfj bfk bfl bfm bfn bfo bfp bfq bfr bfs bft bfu bfv bfw bfx bfy bfz bga\" dir=\"ltr\">We are, in this century, accustomed to getting our information immediately. Radio and television are too slow, and paper is often out of the question.<\/span> Our pockets hold devices that ring and buzz and blink with the latest news. Social media, RSS feeds, and blogs have rushed information to us at a breathless pace. Even scholarly communication must be faster. Electronic journals have shouldered print out of the way, and if even e-journals are too slow, there is pre-publication access. We simply cannot wait. Something, of course, has been sacrificed for this speed. Could it be intellectual rigor? How can one peer review a social media post? With handles and aliases, do we even know our sources?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_28357\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28357\" style=\"width: 176px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"28357\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2024\/01\/25\/making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america-the-pamphlet-press\/deux-ascensions-au-mont-blanc-en-1869\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?fit=702%2C1200&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"702,1200\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"0","credit":"Lortet, L.","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Deux ascensions au Mont-Blanc en 1869 :","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"Deux ascensions au Mont-Blanc en 1869 :\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"<p>gfgsrgssfss<\/p>\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?fit=176%2C300&ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?fit=599%2C1024&ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-28357 size-medium\" title=\"Pamphlets were a way people shared ideas about politics, theology, science, and medicine in the 19th century\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?resize=176%2C300&ssl=1\" alt=\"A title page of a pamphlet with text only\" width=\"176\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?resize=176%2C300&ssl=1 176w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?resize=599%2C1024&ssl=1 599w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OB13000_alt_sick.jpg?w=702&ssl=1 702w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 176px) 100vw, 176px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28357\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Deux Ascensions au Mont-Blanc\u2026,<\/em> a pamphlet presenting altitude sickness research, M. L. Lortet, 1869 <br \/><em><a href=\"http:\/\/resource.nlm.nih.gov\/101743946\">National Library of Medicine #101743946<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It was not always like this. In the 19th and 20th centuries, print was king, and nothing was quite real until you could read it. Early medical conference \u201cproceedings\u201d were just that: a printed report of what was said, who was listening, and what questions were asked by the audience. Such publications appeared quarterly, which seemed often enough at the time, or at least one supposes. Journal articles, more or less peer-reviewed, were available as well (the first peer-reviewed scientific journal appeared in England in 1665). An entire book would take longer, and its distribution would be far narrower, since the costs to produce and purchase were much higher. As the 19th century wore on, there were both the need and the technology to produce something faster and more nimbly. And so, the scientific and medical pamphlet presses were born.<\/p>\n<p>Librarians and bibliographers can define \u201cpamphlet\u201d with a fair amount of precision: small format and size, short in length (usually less than 50 pages), cheaply bound in paper wrappers, if in fact they were bound at all. They were ephemeral\u2014not really designed to last at all. There are subsets: offprints (reprints of single journal articles, sometimes revised, often not) and doctoral dissertations, from a time when medical students distributed printed copies of their theses in advance of a VERY public defense. Particularly successful or controversial dissertations could be reprinted as pamphlets for a wider audience.<\/p>\n<p>Pamphlets themselves were not new when French physician Claude Bernard (1813\u00ad\u20131878) started collecting. In the political and theological arenas, they had existed since the introduction of printing into Europe in the 15th century. However, in many ways, these very early pamphlets were more than a bit sketchy. In a European world just coming to terms with print and a gradually growing level of literacy, the time-honored way to make a public statement was to post a proclamation in a very public place and have someone read it to the (presumed) crowd. This sounds like a royal act, but it wasn\u2019t limited to the officialdom. Brave enough citizens could post things too. Think of Martin Luther and the church door in Wittenberg. The \u201c95 Theses\u201d had been printed as a broadside\u2014a poster\u2014and all Luther needed was a hammer, some nails, and a willingness to face the consequences, all of which he apparently possessed. Broadsides were cumbersome and not very subtle. But, if you took that <a href=\"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2016\/11\/29\/a-book-unfinished-paracelsus-in-hand-press-sheets\/\">single sheet and folded it two or three times (quarto or octavo format)<\/a>, you had a cheap, compact, convenient, pocket-sized (for easy concealment, if needed) way of distributing a short text. A sheet folded in octavo (three times) needed to be run through the printing press only twice, once for each side, but gave you a sixteen-page pamphlet, with minimal cutting and sewing. Controversial content or not, pamphlets became the cheap, quick way of sharing ideas.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_28356\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28356\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"28356\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2024\/01\/25\/making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america-the-pamphlet-press\/fig3_paracelsus\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?fit=1151%2C1535&ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1151,1535\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"29","credit":"","camera":"NIKON D750","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1479899224","copyright":"","focal_length":"60","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.05","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"Fig3_Paracelsus\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"<p>gsdgsdffsfrsefeasf<\/p>\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?fit=225%2C300&ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?fit=768%2C1024&ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-28356 size-large\" title=\"16th-century physician and alchemist Paracelsus was a prolific prognosticator.\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\" alt=\"A page printed in quadrants\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=900%2C1200&ssl=1 900w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=600%2C800&ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=450%2C600&ssl=1 450w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=300%2C400&ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=150%2C200&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?resize=840%2C1120&ssl=1 840w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Fig3_Paracelsus.jpg?w=1151&ssl=1 1151w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28356\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A full sheet like this one would have been folded twice to produce an eight-page pamphlet in a quarto format.<br \/><em>Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Theophrasti Paracelsi,<\/em> Paracelsus, 1610 <br \/><em><a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.nlm.nih.gov\/permalink\/01NLM_INST\/1o1phhn\/alma9916478653406676\">National Library of Medicine #101647865<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The immediacy and low cost that pamphlets provided only got better as printing technology advanced. The mechanization of printing during the Industrial Revolution brought steam-powered iron presses, stereotype printing plates, and machine-made paper. Railroads and steamships made far wider distribution networks profitable. Bound books became cheaper too, but they were more expensive for short works. Books needed to be bound, if only temporarily, for sale when industrialized printing got moving. Pamphlets needed only a stitch or two in the gutter fold (later staples were used). Even cheaper was sewing straight down through the face of the page. This is technically called \u201cstabbing,\u201d and it prevents the pamphlets from opening fully, with the occasional loss of text. But who really cared? After all, a pamphlet was meant to be read once or twice, and then discarded. If the text was really important, wouldn\u2019t it reappear in a book at some point?<\/p>\n<p>This brings us back to what is remarkable about the Claude Bernard collection. For whatever reason, and at some expense, he decided to bind his pamphlets together, organizing them in some fashion, even if only to create stable physical volumes, bound by similar size. The ephemeral was to be made permanent, and the elusive format preserved.<\/p>\n<p><em>Explore<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nlm.nih.gov\/exhibition\/making-the-greatest-medical-library\/index.html\">Making the Greatest Medical Library<\/a> <em>online and learn more about NLM\u2019s work collecting and preserving the world\u2019s medical knowledge in this <a href=\"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/category\/exhibitions\/making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america\/\">series<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new online exhibition, Making the Greatest Medical Library in America, showcases a selection of 19th century pamphlets acquired early<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57991628,"featured_media":28373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42333869,12763,2029,678875970,347145303,2347],"tags":[23993,106484,28354841,15380,385674],"class_list":["post-28341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives-manuscripts","category-collections","category-exhibitions","category-making-the-greatest-medical-library-in-america","category-rare-books-journals","category-series","tag-conservation","tag-digitization","tag-john-shaw-billings","tag-librarians","tag-surgeon-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/MGMLA-Steve_feature.jpg?fit=900%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xcDk-7n7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57991628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28341"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28513,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28341\/revisions\/28513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |