Library and Archives

The library of LSHTM was started shortly after the School's inception in 1899. It has a valuable collection of historical monographs on public health and tropical medicine including special collections such as the Reece Collection on Smallpox and Vaccination. The archives of the School date from the mid nineteenth century and are open to all researchers interested in the history of tropical medicine and public health.

Victoria Cranna was appointed as the School archivist in 2002. She is currently surveying the unlisted archival holdings and developing a long-term strategy for the archives, as well as carrying out cataloguing and conservation.

Several of the CHiPH research projects have involved the creation of databases for the storage of research material. Whilst these databases have been designed to fulfil the aims of individual projects they hold information that may be of interest and use to other researchers.

Currently available databases

Temperance: History, current and future alcohol policy.

What the database covers:

This is a bibliographical database, developed for the literature review section of the project. The aim was to cover key interpretive writing on temperance in its heyday of the nineteenth century, but also to analyse how temperance concerns and ideologies changed over time; how temperance networks were reconstituted and how the practical politics of temperance changed. The literature review also encompassed the twentieth century and the period after the Second World War, a period when temperance concerns took new forms.

The search for relevant sources encompassed the British Library, the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, Senate House Library, (University of London), the Institute of Alcohol Studies, and the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Washington, USA. Other bibliographic sources utilised included, the Pubmed database, Alcohol and Temperance History e-mail network, the journal the Social History of Alcohol Review, as well as contacts with leading historians of alcohol who provided suggestions for 'key readings'.

The search unearthed a total of 1170 sources, including primary material. Of these 214 are secondary sources related specifically to the project for which each entry includes full biographical details, as well as abstracts and location of the source. The database can be searched by keywords for example, women, religion or science.

Programme: Endnote

For further information or to arrange an appointment to view any of these databases please contact: Ingrid James or Virginia Berridge

The British Voluntary Hospitals Database

Now available.

Oral History Data.

Project title; Oral History of Community Pharmacy

Description; 50 life story interviews of mainly retired community pharmacists undertaken by Stuart Anderson between 1996 and 1998.

Location; Deposited as part of the National Life Stories collection at the National Sound Archive of the British Library, Series C816.

Oral History of Hospital Pharmacy

Project title; Oral History of Hospital Pharmacy

Description; 50 life story interviews of mainly retired hospital pharmacists undertaken by Stuart Anderson between 1999 and 2001.

Location; Deposited as part of the National Life Stories collection at the National Sound Archive of the British Library, Series C917.