Data dreams: Planning for the future of historical medical documents

Abstract

Historical medical collections with privacy-sensitive information are a potentially rich source of social, behavioral, and economic data for a wide array of researchers. They remain relatively undiscoverable and at risk for destruction, however, because of their restricted content and challenging media formats. Team members from two institutions—the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Texas at Austin—present their respective initiatives to create digital archives and databases that address the privacy and technological challenges of such collections. In doing so, they also argue for the importance (and feasibility) of medical libraries and archives to take the initiative to preserve and make accessible historical patient data.