Author Archives: Kelsi Evans

Season’s Greetings (and 2017/18 Winter Closure)

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Season’s greetings from UCSF Archives & Special Collections. We had another stellar year! We are grateful to our interns and volunteers, who helped us successfully accomplish multiple processing and digitization projects and curate engaging exhibits.

We would also like to thank our supporters and donors for their role in growing our collections.

The Archives & Special Collections will be closed from Saturday, December 23, 2017 through Monday, January 1st, 2018. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 2nd.

The Archives team wishes you all a Happy New Year!

3D Printing Artifacts in the Makers Lab

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This is an excerpt of a blog post written by Dylan Romero, UCSF Library Makers Lab Manager. Read the full article here.

When the Makers Lab opened in April 2016, we were eager to explore 3D printing applications for UCSF. We soon learned there are countless applications for this technology at a health science institution. Even better, there are some incredible applications for us right here in the UCSF Library, specifically for the Library’s Archives & Special Collections department and the Makers Lab…

Stethoscope from A&SC Health Sciences Artifact Collection

I teamed up with Project Archivist (and Makers Lab volunteer) Kelsi Evans and began to search through the inventory of health science artifacts housed in the Archives. While reviewing the spreadsheet of over 900 items, Kelsi and I continued to find artifact after artifact that we knew had the potential to be recreated in the Makers Lab. Why recreate medical artifacts? Because many of these items are rare, old, and delicate, and must stay behind glass or be closely monitored in the Archives reading room. Why not recreate these artifacts to allow patrons to touch, feel, and interact with the material?

Unlocking the collection was our goal for the proof of concept project. Kelsi and I selected a stethoscope from the 1850’s, made of ebony and bone…

Archives & Special Collections was kind enough to loan the stethoscope to the Makers Lab for the project and I got right to work digitizing the instrument. I began by 3D scanning the stethoscope using the Matter & Form 3D scanner in the Makers Lab.

As you can see in the picture of the original stethoscope, the top potion is black, which unfortunately does not scan well with the 3D scanner. Not a problem, I moved on to modeling the stethoscope using the free, web-based software, Tinkercad. I spent the large majority of my time working in Tinkercad, trying to get the 3D model just right. There is still room for improvement, but the model was good enough for our proof of concept and I was ready to 3D print.

Continue reading the article on UCSF Library’s News page and discover how the printing turned out!

Job Shadowing at the Library

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This is an excerpt of a blog post written by Rebecca Tang, Developer with the Industry Documents Library, a division of the UCSF Archives. Read the full article here.

On Thursday October 26, 2017, the Library and Center for Knowledge Management hosted job shadowing for high school students for the first time!

Two students, Kelly and Jane, both Juniors from Balboa High School, visited us and spent the day learning about what it is like to work as a programmer.  Kelly and Jane are part of the Game Design Academy at Balboa High School.  The Game Design Academy is the path way for students who are interested in engineering and programming.  Kelly and Jane have not had any programming experience yet.  They will start programming classes next semester.

They started the day off with a tour of the library with Jim.  Then they attended the weekly meeting with the Industry Documents Library team.  During the meeting, they learned about about the IDL project, databases, and search index.

Then they attended Illios code jam with the Illios team where they got a front end programming primer from Jason and listened in as the Illios team discussed ways to improve their UI…Continue reading the full job shadowing article on the CKM blog.

Volunteer Report: Working on the AIDS History Project

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This is a guest post by Edith Martinez, UCSF Archives Volunteer.

Volunteering at the UCSF Archives has been a great learning experience. I have been able to help with the NHPRC grant project, Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections, an expansion of the AIDS History Project.

AIDS National Conference booklet, 1987. ATN records, MSS 94-28.

I have specifically been working on material from AIDS Treatment News, a biweekly newsletter started by John James in 1986 that reports on experimental and conventional treatments for HIV/AIDS and related conditions. ATN articles are based on information that James gathered from meetings, conferences, interviews, publications, and correspondence.

VIIIth International Conference on AIDS in Africa and VIIIth African Conference on Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 1993. ATN records, MSS 94-28.

Working on this collection I realized that it is a lot of work organizing and processing. I’ve also learned more about the history of AIDS and found some really interesting items that I thought were fascinating. John James attended many conferences and saved many of the booklets from these conferences. The booklets for the VIIIth International Conference on AIDS in Africa and the AIDS National Conference in San Francisco are just some examples. Looking through these booklets and reading about the talks and workshops listed in each, one can see how AIDS prevention and treatment has progressed and changed over the years. It’s a true learning experience, and working on this collection has really helped me better understand AIDS history and archival work.

New Donald P. Francis Digital Collection

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We’re highlighting the new digital collection of Donald P. Francis, CDC epidemiologist, pediatrician, and AIDS public health advocate. The digital collection includes selections from the Francis papers (MSS 2015-01) that we recently processed with the generous support of a National Archives NHPRC grant.

Francis grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MD from Northwestern University, his Doctor of Science from Harvard University, and completed training in pediatrics. In 1971 he joined the CDC, where he continued to work for the next 21 years. At the CDC, he worked on a number of projects in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO), including the Smallpox Eradication Program in Sudan and India. He was also part of the WHO team that investigated the first Ebola outbreak in 1976.

Francis began investigating HIV/AIDS after its emergence in 1981. He directed the AIDS laboratory at the CDC and worked closely with the Institut Pasteur to identify the causative virus. He called attention to the threat of AIDS among gay and straight people and warned of the inadequacy of the public health response and lack of funding. As he stated in a 1983 letter to CDC Center for Infectious Diseases Director Walter R. Dowdle, “Our past and present efforts have been and are far too small and we can’t be proud. It is time to do more. It is time to do what is right.”

In 1992, Francis joined Genentech and helped found what became the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Francis later co-founded VaxGen, which completed the world’s first Phase III trials of two candidate HIV vaccines in 2003. In 2004, Francis co-founded Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID) and he continues to consult regarding vaccines and public health.

You can view the digital collection on Calisphere. If you would like to research the Francis papers, please make an appointment with us.

#AskAnArchivist Day – October 4

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October 4th is Ask An Archivist Day! We’ll be diligently tending our Twitter account (@ucsf_archives) and responding to questions about our collections, our jobs, or anything else to do with the stewardship of historical material. Tag your questions with #AskAnArchivist to join the conversation.

For example, you could ask:

Have you found any interesting ephemera or artifacts in the AIDS History Project collections? #AskAnArchivist

And we’d say:

Yes, lots. For instance, the papers of epidemiologist Donald Francis include a 12th World AIDS Conference condom and Stop AIDS t-shirt.

12th World AIDS Conference condom, 1998. Donald P. Francis papers, MSS 2015-01.

Stop AIDS t-shirt. Donald P. Francis papers, MSS 2015-01.

#AskAnArchivist Day is part of our October Archives Month programming. Learn more about other upcoming events here.

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.

New AIDS Health Project Digital Collection

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We’ve started work on our NHPRC grant project, “Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections.” Throughout the project, we’ll be posting regular updates on Brought to Light.

We’re happy to announce the new AIDS Health Project (AHP) digital collection. The UCSF AIDS Health Project (AHP) began its HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and counseling efforts in 1984 with support from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH). It grew out of a community commitment to respond and treat itself.

AHP staff and volunteers conducted research and provided mental health counseling, crisis intervention, HIV testing, youth outreach, and social services. Additionally, AHP provided HIV/AIDS training to mental health and other healthcare providers.

AHP implemented innovative programs and developed literature aimed at youth, gay men, minority communities, and other groups. AHP changed its name from the AIDS Health Project to the Alliance Health Project in 2013, expanding its mission to explicitly include the health and wellness of LGBTQ people. Check out their current work at ucsf-ahp.org.

You can view the complete AHP digital collection on Calisphere. To research the AHP records in person, please make an appointment with us.

Intern Report: Archive Your Pride Event Planning

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This is a guest post by Anida Hodzic, UCSF Archives Intern.

Being an intern is hard work, especially at the UCSF Archives and Special Collections. During my summer internship, I was assigned the difficult task of helping my supervisor (Kelsi Evans) prepare for the Archive Your Pride Button Making Pop Up at the UCSF Makers Lab. To begin, we searched for images that would work on a button. I know what you’re thinking, that seems easy enough…The difficulty came in the amount of amazing images, posters, pamphlets, and other ephemera we came across.

My collage of some of the images from the collections.

UCSF digital collections on Calisphere, including the AIDS History Project Ephemera Collection and the Bobby Campbell Diary, were full of relatable and interesting content. We also went down to the vault and sifted through some un-digitized material. After we selected the images, we tried to make a few sample buttons. One of my fellow interns and I spent about an hour in the Makers Lab trying to make buttons without reading the directions. Thus we made a simple task complicated and confusing. Once we finally figured out that following directions was a good thing, the pride buttons came pouring out of the button maker.

The event the next day was worth all of our hard work. The turn out was awesome and people loved our images, glitter, and stickers. It was great fun to see everyone support Pride, the Archives, the Makers Lab, and each other’s creativity. The buttons were cool, the atmosphere warm, and my summer internship was fun and successful.

New UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) Digital Collection

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This is a post by Kelsi Evans, Project Archivist, and Lynda Letona, Archives Intern.

We’ve started work on our NHPRC grant project, “Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections.” Throughout the project, we’ll be posting regular updates on Brought to Light.

We’d like to highlight the new digital collection of the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS). CAPS was established in 1986 to educate scientists and stimulate new research projects that impact the practice, theory, and policy of HIV/AIDS prevention and keep pace with the changing epidemic. The scope of CAPS has evolved over the decades to include global projects, the development of prevention interventions, and collaborative work among researchers in fields including biomedicine, psychology, epidemiology, behavioral science, policy, clinical medicine, and other disciplines. The digital collection includes selected conference and research project materials, correspondence, publications, and ephemera.

Correspondence in the digital collection includes a 1994 letter from the American Psychiatric Association Commission on AIDS and the American Psychological Association Committee on Psychology and AIDS to Dr. David Kessler, Commissioner of the FDA. The letter expresses concerns about home sample collection (HSC) testing kits for HIV, including the range of reactions that people testing HIV positive or negative might experience. Such reactions, the letter argues, could result in severe states of anxiety and depression, increased suicidal thoughts and behavior, and increased high risk behavior for HIV transmission. The authors write, “We believe that face-to-face HIV counseling remains the procedure of choice and that HSC kit testing should be utilized only when the former is unavailable or unacceptable to the consumer,” since in-person counseling allows for more adequate assessment and management of psychological responses to testing.

The digital collection also includes issues of the Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases (WORLD) newsletter. This publication includes powerful stories, including “Fighting Two Diseases” from issue number 12. Here, a woman writes about her experience of battling drug addiction in her youth and later HIV. She shares her great appreciation of going to a Kaiser educator who cared about her and helped her through difficult times. She writes that in spite of all the fear and devastation the diagnosis brought her, she has managed to experience many wonderful things and learned to remain focused on the good in life.

You can view the CAPS digital collection on Calisphere at calisphere.org/collections/26898/. To research the CAPS records in person, please make an appointment with us.