The Medical Heritage Center (MHC), located in the Health Sciences Library (HSL), holds over 3,000 linear feet of archival materials. The archives were entrusted to the MHC’s care by numerous donors and document the history of medical education and practice in central Ohio. The collections also represent the history of dentistry, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, psychiatry, public health and central Ohioans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the physical archives are preserved in secure, temperature-controlled storage, these valuable historical records are not meant to just sit on the shelves. For each archival collection, staff draft a detailed description of the contents – known as a finding aid – that assists researchers in locating items of interest in the collections.

Building our online finding aids

Over the course of 2024 and 2025, MHC staff have undertaken a project to update existing finding aids, draft new finding aids and publish all the finding aids online. We started with 42 finding aids online and now have over 300 finding aids accessible. This represents most of our archival collections. The finding aids are part of The Ohio State University Libraries Special Collections Registry. The registry is a database of archival collections found in Thompson Library and other Ohio State repositories. To see the MHC’s finding aids, scroll to our icon on the bottom of the page and click on Browse Collections. 

The browsing list provides the title and unique identification number for each collection. Collections are listed in numerical order by their identification numbers. The search function at the top of the page can search words in the titles of collections. For example, if you want to know if the MHC holds the papers of a particular physician, nurse or other medical provider you can type in their name. If you are looking for records of a hospital, organization of medical providers or medical school, type in all or part of the institution or organizations’ name. If you are not retrieving results, you can try using fewer search words, as one or two words may retrieve more results than a longer search phrase.

The Special Collections Registry connects related archival collections

An exciting feature of the Special Collections Registry is that it can connect related archival collections that are in different repositories on the Ohio State campus. For example, a physician who was also an Ohio State professor or administrator may be represented in both the MHC’s collections and the Ohio State University Archives. Medical facilities, such as The James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, can also have historical records in multiple places. To search finding aids for related collections, look in the upper right-hand corner of the main page and click on View All Collections. Like the browse and search page for just the MHC’s collections, the search box is at the top with the collections listed below. If you want to search for collections related to Arthur James or The James Cancer Hospital, a keyword search for ‘James’ retrieves a wide range of results to browse. When searching all the collections, take note of the third column on the left. This is where the location of the collections on campus is noted.

Who to contact for help

If you find a collection or maybe several collections of interest, please contact curator Kristin Rodgers at MHCmail@osumc.edu. If you do not find something for which you are searching, we also encourage you to get in touch with us for research advice. New and updated finding aids will be added to the Special Collections Registry, so bookmark this page and check in now and then.