MHL Institutional Digitization Survey
Summary of Results
January 14, 2011
The survey was developed and administered by the Governance and Selection Working Groups of
the MHL Project partners as an information gathering and an outreach tool to communities who
may be potential partners, supporters or funders of future efforts to develop the MHL collection.
The survey was conducted using Survey Monkey™ and responses were solicited in two mailings to
various listservs and moderators beginning in late November and ending December 20,2010. The
current MHL partner institutions also completed the survey.
1. Communities and Listservs targeted
A&A List
Society of American Archivists
AAMG Association of Academic Museums & Galleries
MeMA
Medical Museum Association
ALHHS Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences
RBMS
ALA’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section
Cadeuceus
Sci-Med-Tech
Ex Libris-L
AAHSL Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (directors’ list)
2. Introductory Text Linked to the Survey
Several large history of medicine libraries in the U.S. have recently begun a collaborative digital
project called The Medical Heritage Library (see: http://www.medicalheritage.org).
The MHL promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine. Our goal is to
provide the means by which readers and scholars across a multitude of disciplines can examine the
interrelated nature of medicine and society, both to inform contemporary medicine and strengthen
understanding of the world in which we live.
Several MHL partners are currently scanning history of medicine printed materials using a grant
from the Sloan Foundation and Open Knowledge Commons (URLs?), and the entire group is
investigating innovative ways to give scholars access to the materials. Scanning partners are
contributing their files to a single repository, currently in Internet Archive (see:
http://www.archive.org/details/medicalheritagelibrary). The group hopes that others scanning
history of medicine materials will consider contributing their files here as well so that those looking
for online history of medicine materials will have to search in fewer repositories.
The MHL partners are seeking input from other history of medicine collections. If your library has
already digitized history of medicine related materials or is considering it, we would be interested
1
in hearing about your projects. We are also interested in the audiences you believe are using or
would use such online resources. For this purpose, we have put together a survey for institutions
interested in the digitization of history of medicine related materials. Please follow this link ...
Please fill out the survey by November 30, 2010.
3. Responses:
Number of unique (and complete) responses: 62 out of 64
Given the time of year and the method of distribution, this is probably an acceptable response rate.
We had no good estimate of the numbers of institutions we were trying to reach. We have captured
the name and contact information of the person completing the survey for future follow-up.
4.Types of organizations:
Medical school library
Other college/university library
Hospital library
Private medical society library
Medical museum
Other:
%
Types of organizations participating
in the survey (n=62)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
51.56
31.25
20.31
10.94
3.13
1.56
The largest response group included academic institutions and medical School libraries. Among the
“others” were independent medical research libraries, a national library, biotechnology company,
and a chiropractic college.
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4. Which researchers tend to use your collections most? Please check all that apply.
n
Undergraduates
Graduate students
Physicians
Medical historians
Social/cultural historians
Art historians
Literature scholars
Genealogists
General public
Image/film researchers
Publishers
Others
Total
&
17
35
31
39
20
10
8
18
14
15
9
11
227
9.34
19.23
17.03
21.43
10.99
5.49
4.40
9.89
7.69
8.24
4.95
6.04
124.73
Graduate students, physicians and medical historians are the largest groups of users which seems
to reflect the types of organizations responding.
Primary users of collections (n=182)
25
19.23
20
%
15
10
5
9.34
21.43
17.03
10.99
9.89
5.49
4.40
7.69
8.24
4.95
6.04
0
3
5. Have you digitized any history of medicine materials?
Nearly 80% of respondents have digitized some historical materials.
Yes:
50
No: 11
If so, what formats:
n
21
14
14
29
37
2
12
8
10
147
Monographs
Journals
Bound manuscripts
Archives
Prints/photographs
Microfilm/fiche
Voice recordings
Audiovisuals
Other
Total
%
17.95
11.97
11.97
24.79
31.62
1.71
10.26
6.84
8.55
125.64
%
Formats digitized (n=117)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
31.62
24.79
17.95
11.97
11.97
10.26
6.84
8.55
1.71
Other-- specify, included materials that might have fit in other defined categories such as oral
history transcripts, school yearbooks, course catalogs, clippings, minutes of county medical society
meetings.
The majority of these digitized resources reside in local and institutional repositories, followed
closely by Internet Archives.
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6. Where are your digitized files located? Please check all that apply:
n
%
Local/institutional repository
43
76.79
Internet Archive
9
16.07
Hathi Trust
1
1.79
Google Books
4
7.14
Regional repository
6
10.71
Other
7
12.50
Total
70
125.00
%
Locations of Digitized Files (n=56)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
76.79
16.07
1.79
7.14
10.71
12.50
Other locations mentioned were Content dm, Flickr, and non-searchable computer storage devices.
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Is your library interested in digitizing more of its history of medicine materials?
n
&
Yes
51
110.87
No*
4
8.70
Total
55
119.57
All 4 cited not enough staff and insufficient funds as the reason. The responses confirm that lack of
resources is the main barrier to further digitization efforts.
A significant number of Institutions that are already digitizing and interested in digitizing more, cite
user demand and acquired internal capacity as the reasons to digitize more.
Reasons for digitizing (n=85)
35
30.59
28.24
30
%
25
22.35
20.00
20
15
11.76
10
5
0
User demand
Now an
Resources
institutional now available
priority
Internal
scanning
operation
Other
Do you have regional or subject area collections in the history of medicine that you would like to
digitize and share on the internet?
n
Yes
No
Total
%
31
13
44
83.78
35.14
118.92
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The “yes” responses should trigger follow-up to learn more about regional or subject collections
that could strengthen the MHL collection.
Responses are pretty evenly split between those who have received grant funding and those who
have not with slight more reporting they have not.
Have you received grant funding to digitize history of medicine materials?
n
Yes
No
Total
%
22
28
50
52.38
66.67
119.05
%
Sources of grant funding (n=28)
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
28.57
21.43
17.86
17.86
17.86
17.86
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