Silences in the LAMs: Digital Surrogacy in the Time of Pandemic, an Introduction

Abstract

In 2018, seven partners within the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL)—the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Pennsylvania Hospital, The Library Company, and the American Philosophical Society—received funding through the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digitizing Hidden Collections program to digitize all extant records documenting early medical education in Philadelphia. This project, For the Health of the New Nation: Philadelphia as the Center of American Medical Education, 1746–1868 , will make available through the Internet Archive more than 140,000 images of lecture tickets, course schedules, theses, dissertations, student notes, faculty lecture notes, commencement addresses, opening addresses, and matriculation records that not only document the “greats” in the history of American medicine but also provide access to those silenced voices of people whose medical care provided the basis for medical education.