Meharry proposes to develop a comprehensive black medical collection. The project is proposed for a three year period, following which the collection will continue indefinitely with support from other sources. The project is designed to address four major gaps identified in existing black medical history collections: 1) Many of the materials are uncatalogued and generally unavailable for public use; 2) Many of the collections are static with no conscientious effort toward development or expansion; 3) Many collections lack consistent research use by the internal staff of repositories; and 4) Many of the collections are of limited scope, focusing on single individuals and city or state health activities, and limit materials to those acquired as unsolicited gifts. Meharry will attempt to fill these gaps by: 1) cataloging materials and developing finding aids for Meharry's present collection of black medical history and archival materials; 2) acquiring and classifying additional materials on black medical history, black health professionals, black health beliefs and practices, black health care organizations and institutions; 3) informing potential users of the activities of and the materials in the collection through the provision of machine-readable holdings records, the development of bibliographies, increased publications, seminars by medical historians, and community presentations; 4) preserving fragile historical materials; and 5) developng sustained financial support for the collection. It is expected that at the completion of this project, previously unavailable information and accessible information will be at the disposal of scholars and researchers, resulting in an increased body of medical history knowledge for all.
