Happy Holidays (and 2016/17 Winter Closure)

The archives team is grateful to our blog subscribers (please also check our Twitter and Tumblr channels), supporters, and users! The UCSF Library team recently redesigned our website to better serve your needs: https://www.library.ucsf.edu/archives/, please take a few moments to review it and send us your comments via this email: libraryarchives@ucsf.edu.
This holiday season we would like to share with you a recipe from “The Fraus’ Favorites,” a cookbook compiled by spouses of the School of Medicine class of 1953 students (AR 2012-22) :

Rose Fujii recipe from "The Fraus' Favorites" cookbook, 1953

Rose Fujii recipe from “The Fraus’ Favorites” cookbook, 1953

The Archives and Special Collections will be closed from Friday, December 23, 2016 through Monday, January 2nd, 2017. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 3rd.

The Archives team wishes you all a Happy New Year!

Exploring the Bio Files

This is a guest post by Joshua Dela Cruz, UCSF Archives Intern.

For the past few months, I have been working as an amateur archivist. My duties in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections have ranged from everything from processing projects to moving heavy boxes filled with books and manuscript collections.

An example of one of my projects is to help inventory the bio files. For this project, I look through a large collection of biographical files of people who have been affiliated with UCSF. These people range from professors, students, physicians and researchers to donors and people who helped build the physical school itself. As I search through what appears to be a never ending collection, I record each person’s name, birth and death dates, profession, notable facts, and their affiliation to the school.

Bio file drawer in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections.

One of the bio file drawers in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections.

The purpose of this project is for the UCSF archivists to have a digital record of the enormous collection of profiles. Additionally, in the long run, they will be able to display the information on an online database where the general public can access it. The project helps the archivists easily locate biographical information and the unique archival material inside the folders.

Bio file of Ichitaro Katsuki, UC School of Medicine graduate, 1896.

Bio file of Ichitaro Katsuki, 1896 UC School of Medicine graduate.

This project has been especially interesting to me because I’m considering a career in the medical field. Half of the bio files project includes reading about the lives of the people, many of them physicians, and their achievements. As a result, I found myself learning about the history of medicine, UCSF, and the school’s amazing physicians and students. Oftentimes, I would read entire biographies or even search more information about the people and work that fascinated me.

Bio file of Benjamin Gross.

Bio file of Benjamin Gross.

Although the work can be repetitive and meticulous, I have enjoyed my time as an intern. After learning about and working behind the scenes of an archive, I have gained a great appreciation for the profession and the people. It has been a very enlightening experience for me, especially in regards to my possible career paths in the future, and I am thankful for the archivists who welcomed and guided me these past few months.

Searching Tobacco Archives: Sports and Chewing Tobacco

This is a guest post by Allen Smoot, UCSF Archives Intern.

As an intern for the UCSF Archives, I’ve been working on digitized state medical society journals and tobacco control collections. At UCSF, the Archives and the Industry Documents Library both house immense collections of tobacco-related material. In the Industry Documents Library there are millions of documents from tobacco companies about their manufacturing, marketing, and scientific research.  I narrowed in on chewing tobacco and how it became popular in the sporting world.

Image from "The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider," September 1980, page 4. https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=fnyg0028

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 4.

Smokeless tobacco gained popularity in the United States in part because many jobs prohibited workers from smoking on site.  Advertising also played a role; for example, an article in 1980 outlined the various ways that tobacco companies targeted college campuses and youths through their advertising for chewing tobacco. A report in 1984 cited that in Atlanta, 11% of sample elementary and high school students regularly used snuff.

In the sports world, the numbers could be higher. The same 1984 report, for instance, noted that in a Texas sample, one in every three varsity college athletes on baseball or football teams took two to eight dips per day.  Sports idols like Sparky Lyle, former ace pitcher for the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, contributed to chewing tobacco usage by serving as spokespersons for tobacco companies. Lyle promoted Levi Garrett pouch chewing tobacco on TV by claiming, “Most ball players dream about making it to the Hall of Fame, but I’d be satisfied for people just to remember me as the guy with the great chewing tobacco.”

Image from "The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider," September 1980, page 3. https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=fnyg0028

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 3.

Smokeless tobacco was advertised as “macho” by sports figures which led to the increase in use by younger people (“Smokeless tobacco is ‘burning’ young athletes,” 1981).

You can read more documents related to smokeless tobacco online in the Industry Documents Library and in the State Medical Society Journals Collection. You can also visit the UCSF Archives and view the Tobacco Control Archives.

World AIDS Day – Documenting the Epidemic

The UCSF Archives & Special Collections started building the AIDS History collection almost 30 years ago, in 1987. Early on, the archivists decided to create a collection development policy that would allow researchers to examine diverse aspects of the AIDS epidemic, including political, social, economic, cultural, and biomedical aspects.

The AIDS History Project holdings at UCSF currently include 39 collections; all of them are cataloged and 32 are processed and have detailed inventories. The recently-acquired seven new collections, comprising a total of 373 linear feet, are not yet processed, and the archives are working to secure funding to arrange and describe them. In the past year we added the following collections to our holdings:

John S. Greenspan papers

—John Greenspan, BDS, PhD, and Deborah Greenspan, DSc, BDS, ca. 1984

—John Greenspan, BDS, PhD, and Deborah Greenspan, DSc, BDS, ca. 1984

A faculty member at UCSF since 1976, John S. Greenspan is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Oral Pathology in the Department of Orofacial Sciences. He is a Director-Emeritus of the AIDS Research Institute, which he led from 2003 to 2012, and is the founding Director of the UCSF Oral AIDS Center, as well as UCSF AIDS Specimen Bank. He was the Director of the UCSF AIDS Clinical Research Center/California AIDS Research Center from 1992 to 2005.

His research interests include the global health aspects of AIDS. His own work is rooted in studies of oral aspects of AIDS and the role of viruses in oral epithelial and salivary gland lesions. He and his colleagues have made major contributions to HIV research and care, notably the discovery of the lesion hairy leukoplakia, its association with EBV, and the significance of this and other oral lesions in the natural history of HIV diseases. His papers include correspondence, presentations, lectures, research data and notes, teaching materials, records related to administration of the AIDS Research Institute and AIDS Specimen Bank.

Don Francis papers, MSS 2015-01

Donald P. Francis

Donald P. Francis

As an infectious disease trained pediatrician and epidemiologist, Dr. Francis has over 30 years of experience in epidemic control and vaccines. He spent 21 years working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) focusing on vaccine-preventable diseases. Dr. Francis has worked on HIV/AIDS since its emergence in 1981. He initially directed the AIDS laboratory at the CDC and worked closely with the Institut Pasteur to identify the causative virus. His early efforts to call attention to the threat of AIDS and warn of the inadequacy of the public health response were chronicled in the book by Randy Shilts And the Band Played On. In 1992, he joined Genentech to spend full time developing vaccines, while he also helped found what became the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Dr. Francis co-founded VaxGen, which completed the world’s first Phase III trials of two candidate HIV vaccines in 2003. His papers include correspondence, news-clippings, research data and notes, conference and presentation materials, and ephemera.

AIDS Treatment News, MSS 94–28 – 2015 addition

This recent donation of more than 68 linear feet complements the ATN records that were transferred to the archives in 1994.

Title page of AIDS Treatment News, Issue #3, May 9, 1986

Title page of AIDS Treatment News, Issue #3, May 9, 1986

AIDS Treatment News (ATN) was a biweekly newsletter that reported on both orthodox and experimental treatments of AIDS-related conditions. AIDS Treatment News was frequently the first publication to investigate and write about potential new treatments, clinical trials, and the politics involved in government sanctioned and alternative therapeutics. It was a primary resource for community-based organizations and government agencies, and was also read by many physicians and scientists involved in AIDS research and care. These records include correspondence, telephone logs, presentations, minutes of meetings, photographs, and news clippings.

The mission of the UCSF AHP has broadened from the initial goal of identifying, surveying and describing at-risk records of educational and professional institutions, non-profit service organizations and ad hoc community-based organizations that emerged in San Francisco in the early years of AIDS epidemic.

The multifaceted and multidisciplinary approach to collection development has led UCSF Archives & Special Collections to create a complex and comprehensive AIDS history research collection that documents not only medical aspects of the epidemic, but also changes in cultural values and shifts in policy and social response. UCSF Archives is continuing to build an inclusive AIDS history research collection where patients, activists, researchers, clinicians, journalists, and community based organizations’ perspectives will be preserved and will allow current and future generations of researchers to examine and learn from these materials.

UCSF Archives poster (designed by Mark McGowan)

UCSF Archives poster (designed by Mark McGowan)

The need to preserve and provide access to these materials was reinforced by two recent initiatives:

Dan Royles posted a call to action in the October issue of the AHA’s Perspectives on History to teach AIDS history to undergraduates: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2016/silence-death-its-time-to-teach-aids-history

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory organized a meeting, “HIV/AIDS Research: Its History & Future” that brought together more than 125 pioneering scientists and clinicians who discussed the key scientific, epidemiological, and clinical discoveries that created this field and stressed the importance of preserving the past to find ways to address and control epidemics in the future: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/10/gathering-hivaids-pioneers-raw-memories-mix-current-conflicts

The archivists are collaborating with the UCSF AIDS Research Institute on collection development and public outreach efforts and today, to commemorate the World AIDS Day, we will be presenting two posters at the amfAR HIV Cure Summit at Mission Bay campus.

The UCSF Archives is open to anyone regardless of institutional affiliation, to make an appointment to see these materials, please use this contact form.