Monthly Archives: September 2017

Archives Month — October 2017

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Librarian Dorothy Allen explains how to use reference materials in the library. October is Archives Month! (also AIDS Awareness Month coincidentally). Since we’re an archive, we’re celebrating! Archives Month, if you haven’t heard of it, is “an opportunity to tell (or remind) people that items that are important to them are being preserved, cataloged, cared for, and made accessible by archivists.” We’ll be taking this opportunity to host all kinds of events and happenings which will revolve around the historical materials we preserve.

What exactly will we be doing? A lot! Here’s a brief summary:

  • On October 4th: Opening reception at 12 pm for our exhibit of Dr. Arthur Ammann’s photo-montages — a call for an end to the violence against women represented by the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
  • Also on October 4th: We’ll be participating in #AskAnArchivist Day on October 4th all day long. We’ll be diligently tending our Twitter account (@ucsf_archives), so send us questions about our collections, our jobs, or anything else to do with stewardship of historical materials! Tag your questions with #AskAnArchivist to join the conversation.
  • On October 6: Archives Lecture at 12 pm by Dr. David Smith on the history of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics, which he founded 50 years ago just down the street.
  • On October 17: ZSFG Archives Drop-in exhibit at 12 pm. Learn about the history of ZSFG, meet Griffin the ZSFG Archivist, and see materials from the collections.
  • On October 28: Visit us and other SF institutions for San Francisco Archives Crawl: Counterculture and Social Protest, 12-5pm.
  • On October 30: A Spoooooky Halloween open house at 12 pm in our reading room where we’ll exhibit various macabre images and frightening implements from the early days of medicine.

A Dental Student work on the teeth of a patient.

And of course, the main thing we will do this month is the same thing we do every month: steward the materials that document our collective past and inform our future. We hope you’ll join us in October to celebrate archives, and thank you for your support!

Exhibit Opening: HIV: A Plague of Violence Against Women

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Exhibit Reception: October 4th, 2017, 12 pm to 2 pm

Opening Remarks at 12 pm by Drs. Arthur J. Ammann and Paul Volberding, Larkin Callaghan, PhD

Location: UCSF Parnassus Library, 530 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, 1st Floor Lobby (take the elevator or the stairs to the ground floor), UCSF Shuttles & Parking, Public Transportation

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: http://calendars.library.ucsf.edu/event/3527701

This exhibit will be on view at the UCSF Library from October 4th, 2017 through March 30th, 2018.

Dr. Ammann. No One Is Listening.
Montage: Jiří Cernicky, Schizophrenia. (1998)
Edvard Munch, Maiden and Death. (1894).
Edvard Munch, The Scream. (1893)
Edvard Munch, The Sun. (1912)
Out of the Void, Pacific Ocean
Liquidambar styraciflua (seed pods)

Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections for the exhibit opening and reception of “HIV: A Plague of Violence Against Women”. This exhibit features a collection of photo montages by Arthur J. Ammann, M.D., a pediatric immunologist and advocate known for his research on HIV transmission and his role in the development of the first successful vaccine to prevent pneumococcal infection in 1977.  Dr. Ammann is also the founder of Global Strategies (http://www.globalstrategies.org/) , a nonprofit organization that serves women and children in the most neglected areas of the world where he witnessed not one but two epidemics affecting women —sexual and physical violence and HIV.

Through his surrealist lens, Dr. Ammann’s photo montages document the suffering he witnessed during his time working with HIV infected women in Africa. The world of art has been a refuge for Dr. Ammann since his childhood. The creations of great artists spoke to him about the unrelenting violence against women, the struggle between good and evil, and the valley of the shadow of death. Paintings by Blake, Bosch, Giotto, Kahlo, Munch, Caravaggio, Titian, Dali, Freud, Nerdrum, and Picasso, resonated with what he felt from his experiences.

For over a decade he put the images together, took them apart, and put them together again. The title of each photo montage is accompanied by a quote or words, many derived from the stories women told. These images are a collective demand that “Violence against women must be stopped.”

Dr. Ammann with collagues

The exhibit is also a call to action for Dr. Ammann: “We must never accept violence and injustice nor ignore its enduring wounds. We can create new voices and images for advocacy. We can move to repair the physical, emotional, and spiritual scars that remain. We can provide inexpensive and easy to use medicines to prevent the complications of rape―HIV, other sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy.”

We invite you to explore this visually arresting exhibit in support of Dr. Ammann’s efforts to end violence against women.

 

Health Sciences Artifacts on Calisphere

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We’re highlighting one of our recently added digital collections on Calisphere: the Health Sciences Artifact Collection.

The digital collection includes selections from the over 1,000 items in the UCSF Archives Artifact Collection. The items illustrate the development of tools and techniques for medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and nursing practice.

Of special note are the Advances in Healthcare calendar images. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, UCSF Archives created calendars featuring items from the Artifact Collection. Three of these calendars have been digitized and made available in the Health Sciences Artifact Collection on Calisphere.

Check out all the fascinating items pictured. If you want to take a closer look at any of the artifacts, make an appointment with us to see the real thing in our reading room.