Miss Charlton, Miss Noyes, Dr. Osler and
the Founding of the Medical Library Association
A Presentation to the 2019 American Osler Society Conference
the Founding of the Medical Library Association
A Presentation to the 2019 American Osler Society Conference
In 1896, Dr. William Osler was elected president of the
Medical & Chirurgical Faculty, and as he often did, he came in like a
whirlwind. A building, which was slated to be the long-term home of the Faculty,
was purchased. A new library was opened with much fanfare. The Book &
Journal Club was established, and everyone clamored to join. All looked rosy on
the surface.
But the Faculty’s library had actually fallen on hard times
after the Civil War, Maryland being a border state, and was struggling to
recover. The collection had moved several times, becoming less and less organized.
There was no librarian for much of this time, and physicians could “buy” a key
to access the library. There was room for a library in the new building, but
the outdated collection of books assembled over the past six decades was mostly
in boxes, and the newly-hired librarian wasn’t up to the job of bringing order
to the collection.
Dr. Osler quickly raised funds to create a cozy and fraternal
reading room, where physicians could gather and talk about books. His next
mission was to find a librarian who could manage both the collection of books
and the membership of the Faculty.
After consulting the president of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt
Free Library, Dr. Osler hired a young librarian, Miss Marcia Crocker Noyes. Less
than two weeks after her interview with Dr. Osler, she went from living with
her sister and being the head of circulation at the Pratt library, to living at the
Faculty’s building and becoming its sole employee.
While her background was in the nascent field of library
studies, she had absolutely no medical experience. But that was something which
Dr. Osler thought could be easily remedied. She made herself invaluable to the physicians
at the Faculty and was at their beck and call, literally 24-hours a day.
As part of her job – and much of it was “other duties as
specified” – she made herself available to other medical societies to assist
them in creating their medical libraries, and began a system of exchanging
duplicate books.
Among her early projects was culling the Faculty’s
collection of books, keeping only the most current, and ones which hadn’t been
damaged during the numerous moves.
Additionally, the card catalogue, which was outdated in
myriad ways, was thrown out, and a new classification system of indexing and
cataloging the books was established. As an aside, we still have the complete
card catalogue, including cards written in Miss Noyes’s “library hand”, the standard
for librarians before typewriters became popular.
While Miss Noyes was learning her craft at the Faculty, Miss
Margaret Charlton, the Librarian of the Medical Department at McGill
University, suggested an association of medical librarians. Although the
American Library Association already existed, she noted that, “their problems
are not our problems.”
The inaugural meeting took place in Philadelphia in May of
1898 with four physicians and four librarians, including Miss Charlton.
Although Dr. Osler could not attend, he was supportive of the efforts, and paid
for Miss Noyes and Miss Elizabeth Thies, the librarian from Johns Hopkins, to attend
the meeting.
Miss Noyes and Miss Charlton would go on to excel in
their field as librarians overseeing large collections, Miss Charlton at McGill and then Toronto, and Miss Noyes at the Faculty. Miss Thies left Johns
Hopkins in 1899 to become the private librarian of Dr. Howard Kelly, one of the
“big four” at Johns Hopkins. However, she was a charter member of the Medical
Library Association and was elected to an honorary membership in 1948.
Among the earliest objectives of the MLA were: exchanging
library duplicates; securing the libraries of retired or deceased physicians;
distributing journals of various medical societies; and searching auction sales
for antiquarian books.
From the first meetings, it was established that the
organization was to be of and for medical libraries, rather than for
librarians. The two main projects of the early MLA were a publication and the
book exchange. Dr. Osler and Miss Noyes were integral to both in the MLA’s
formative years.
PUBLICATIONS:
Over its first decade and a half, the Bulletin (which we
will use as an encompassing term for the MLA’s publications) was published in
fits and starts. It was slated to be a quarterly publication, but that didn’t
always happen.
The first publication was called Medical Libraries, published from 1898 to 1902, with the ambitious
tagline from Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Libraries
are the standing armies of civilization.” It was followed by the Bulletin of the Association of Medical
Librarians, which only lasted a year. Miss Noyes, along with Dr. Henry Hurd
of Johns Hopkins and Mr. John Brownne of New York, edited the publication.
Up next was the Medical
Library and Historical Journal, which lasted from 1903 to 1907. These
volumes were filled with original articles and tips for caring for a library,
including hints on dealing with broken bindings, bugs, dust and mis-filed books.
Finally, came the Aesculapian, which
lasted three volumes. Publications ceased for the next four years.
In 1911, the publication was revitalized, and became The Bulletin of the Medical Library
Association. This continued to be its name until 2001, when it was renamed The Journal of the Medical Library
Association.
The Bulletin moved into the Faculty’s building and Miss
Noyes, and her close friend, Dr. John Ruhräh became the editors. The first
volume of the new Bulletin contained a history of the Association, basically
bringing everyone up to date on what had happened over the past few years. She
continued as editor, with various collaborators, until 1926.
While the Exchange and the Bulletin were suffering a tumultuous
first decade, the organization managed to have annual meetings, the first two in
Philadelphia, then Atlantic City, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and
others. It was at the 1901 meeting that Dr. Osler was elected as President of
the organization. He stepped down in 1904, most likely due to his incredible
non-stop schedule of teaching, writing and travelling, but perhaps due to the
idea of an upcoming possible appointment as Regius Professor at Oxford.
THE EXCHANGE:
The Exchange was the other original mandate of the
organization. Dr. Osler was a huge bibliophile and was exceedingly generous in
giving libraries the rare books and journals that he found in his travels. He
wanted every library to be great.
During its first year, the Exchange was in Philadelphia. It
then moved to Baltimore where Miss Noyes oversaw it, helped by a part-time
employee, from 1900 to 1904. To give you an idea of the numbers involved in the
Exchange, in 1901, 2,443 books were distributed, and 2,126 books were received.
Even today with computers and spreadsheets, this would be a daunting job!
Dr. Osler had established the Book & Journal Club, and
it was one of the Faculty’s most popular clubs. Of course, Dr. Osler had an
ulterior motive in establishing this club – if physicians knew about the
Faculty’s library, they would be more likely to support by donating their book
collections to it and perhaps to the MLA’s Exchange.
To give you a quick idea of the quality of the Book &
Journal Club, at one meeting, Dr. Harvey Cushing shared a notable collection of
the works of Vesalius, partly from his own library, and partly from the
libraries of Dr. Howard Kelly and Dr. Osler. This included three copies of the
first edition of De Humani Corporis
Fabrica from 1543, as well as others rare volumes on anatomy.
When the Faculty celebrated its centennial anniversary in
1899, it was an occasion for gifts of rare books and fine portraits to be given
to the Faculty, often with a slight push from Dr. Osler. And if there were
duplicate volumes, all the better!
During the four years the Exchange moved away from Baltimore,
the MLA realized exactly how much Miss Noyes did to keep it up and running in
an orderly fashion. It was also during that period that Dr. Osler was President
of the MLA and realized how important it was to keep the Exchange as THE
integral part of the MLA. While the Bulletin was not being published, the
Exchange was the glue holding the organization together.
By 1909, the Faculty had built its own building, and space
for the Exchange was included in the plans. Dr. Osler had moved to Oxford in
1905 and Dr. John Ruhräh became the head of the Faculty’s Library Committee and
was also active in the MLA as Treasurer. Dr. Ruhräh and Miss Noyes jointly
edited the Bulletin from 1911 until 1926.
In some ways, Dr. Ruhräh took over where Dr. Osler left off.
Both Miss Noyes and Dr. Ruhräh had a deep admiration of Dr. Osler, and remained
friends with him until his death, 100 years ago this coming December. Dr.
Ruhräh had attended Dr. Osler’s open clinics while he was in medical school
(not at Hopkins).
The three seemed to have a similar sense of humor, and notes
still exist of them teasing each other. Dr. Osler sent Miss Noyes bouquets for
her birthday, even though it wasn’t her birthday. Dr. Ruhräh wrote a
prescription to Miss Noyes on New Years’ Eve for a year filled with happiness
and joy. Warm letters were sent back and forth across the Atlantic. The
affection between these friends is apparent all these years later.
As he was dying, Dr. Ruhräh wrote his recollections of his
years as a student of Dr. Osler’s. They also shared a mutual love of books –
the rarer the better. Several years ago, we discovered the unpublished
manuscript, dusted it off and published it. Dr. Ruhräh’s personal anecdotes
cement the memories of Dr. Osler’s years in Baltimore.
In the decade and a half after the Bulletin and the Exchange
moved to Baltimore, both continued to grow and prosper. Miss Noyes eventually
hired a second assistant to help with the Exchange, and things carried on until
eventually, it all just became too much.
But by 1926, the strain on the resources and staff at the
Faculty became overwhelming, as they were essentially not paid to run the
Exchange. It was difficult for member libraries to understand that just because
they wanted a volume, it wasn’t always available, despite the huge number of books
flowing in and out of the Exchange. This was a source of frustration to Miss
Noyes and she writes about it in the Bulletin as she is stepping down from
running the Exchange.
In the 20’s and 30’s, Miss Noyes was the Executive Secretary
of the Faculty, and lived and worked on the premises. She was also the
Faculty’s Librarian, on call 24/7. For part of that time, she was the editor of
the Bulletin and was managing the Exchange, which was receiving and
distributing more than 20,000 volumes a year.
She worked with medical societies across the country to help
them establish their libraries, and was an active member of the MLA.
In 1934, she became the first woman, and the first person
with a non-medical background, to become President of the MLA. She finally
incorporated the organization after almost 40 years, and constantly travelled
to visit member libraries across the country. And now, she was ready to slow
down a bit.
Miss Noyes remained an active member of the MLA and attended
conferences and meetings. Letters between Miss Noyes and Dr. William “Billy”
Francis, Osler’s nephew and the head of the Osler Library at McGill, indicates
that sometimes they were happy with the MLA and sometimes it really irritated
them and they didn’t agree with the way it was being managed.
Miss
Noyes died in 1946, 50 years after she had first arrived at the Faculty. Her
funeral was held in Osler Hall, named for her dear friend. More than 60
physicians whom she’d served acted as the pall-bearers.
Former
Faculty President and friend, Dr. Albert Chatard wrote this in her obituary in
the MLA Bulletin:
Miss Noyes created a created
a reality of the hopes and dreams Dr. Osler formulated while he was at Hopkins…
On this foundation, she worked constantly, before and after he left Baltimore, as
his understudy to create an atmosphere both effective and genial, so that
people would like to come to the building… and would feel that interesting and
important things were going on under its roof.
On a related note, last week was the Annual Conference of
the MLA and the Marcia C. Noyes Award which
recognizes a career that has resulted in lasting and outstanding contributions
to medical librarianship, was given to MedChi’s friend, MJ Tooey.
She is the Executive Director of the Health Sciences and Human Services Library
at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
We continued the tradition of giving flowers, started by Dr.
Osler, and presented a bouquet in Miss Noyes’s memory, with all of our love.
Presentation by Meg Fairfax Fielding
2019 American Osler Society Conference
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
May 13-15, 2019
