The Osler Library of the History of Medicine opened in 1929 to house the collection of rare medical and other books donated by Sir William Osler, the renowned physician and Â鶹AV graduate and professor. Initially comprising 8000 titles listed in the Bibliotheca Osleriana, the collection - the finest of its kind in Canada - has grown to around 100,000 works including older, rare materials as well as current books and periodicals about the history of the health sciences and related areas.
The Osler Library is a major resource centre for historical research in the health sciences and is the international centre for the study of Sir William Osler and the Oslerian tradition. It supports students and teachers at Â鶹AV in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (including the Ingram School of Nursing, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, and School of Communication Sciences and Disorders) as well as the Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences, and the Faculties of Arts and of Science. It is heavily used by researchers from Â鶹AV, Quebec, across Canada, and throughout the world.
Scholarship in medical history is supported through the Osler Library Studies in the History of Medicine series of publications and three research travel grants awarded annually: Dr. Edward H. Bensley Osler Library Research Travel Grant, Mary Louise Nickerson Travel Grant, and Dimitrije Pivnicki Award in Neuro and Psychiatric History. Exhibitions are mounted regularly at the Library's entrance.
The Library is generously supported through endowments and donations and the active participation of members of the Friends of the Osler Library. Membership of the Friends is open to anyone who is interested in the Osler Library, the life and legacy of Sir William Osler or the history of medicine. Please contact the Osler Library for more information.
Sir William Osler (1849-1919) was a Â鶹AV graduate with a distinguished career as a physician, professor, author, and bibliophile at Â鶹AV, the University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins, and as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. As Professor of Medicine at Â鶹AV, he employed new methods using the microscope and pathological study. His major contributions included introducing bedside teaching and writing a major textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine. Sir William Osler was honoured with a baronetcy for his significant innovations in teaching and contributions to medicine, and is revered for his warm personality and for his blending of humanity and science. Bequeathed to Â鶹AV in gratitude for the sound education and strong support he received early in his career, his Library reflects the man, a life in medicine, and his creativity and humanity. Students, teachers, clinicians, and researchers can gain inspiration from the tradition that is recorded in this Library.
Osler Library -- Bylaws
Collection description
The Osler Library’s books and serials are listed in the Â鶹AV Library Catalogue. The Osler Library also has collections of digitised and other material that are not individually listed in the Catalogue. To help find this material, special databases have been created, specifically:
- . The Osler Library Archives has over 100 collections of papers by or about doctors, medical students and organisations, including significant collections on Sir William Osler, Wilder Penfield, Maude Abbott and the Canadian Health Libraries Association. There are fonds or collections level records in the Â鶹AV catalogue too. Please note that individual archival fonds or collections are also listed in the catalogue.
- . The library has an extensive collection of prints and drawings. The largest collections were donated by Dr. Kalz and Dr. Evans. Frederick Kalz had amassed 175 engraved portraits of physicians from the 17th to the 19th centuries. John Howell Evans donated over seven hundred images of cancer and other tumour cases from the late 1860s to the mid 1920s, as well as English physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ones in the print collection have been digitised, but other illustrations remain, primarily in archival collections.
- . This is a digitised collection of approximately 400 photos of Sir William Osler and his family and circle from all phases of his life.
- We also have materials for which there are no online listings, but which are available by writing directly to the Osler Library at osler.library [at] mcgill.ca. Examples of such items are: the Osler Library’s artefact collection of over 700 items consisting of surgical and medical instruments and kits, medals, plaques, etc.; numerous photographs of medical personnel, and paintings. It is worth noting that the library is home to a variety of items belonging to Dr. Osler, including furniture as well as medical instruments.
