Duke Medical Center Archive Blog

Emma Eubank joined the Medical Center Archives as an Intern in August 2023. Emma left in March of this year to begin her career in libraries and archives. Before she left, we asked her a few questions about herself, her time at the Archives, and her career goals. Her answers are below.

School, degree, and expected graduation date? 
UNC at Chapel Hill SILS program; MSLS with Archives and Records Management concentration with the expected graduation date of  August 2025

What did you do during your internship? 
The Duke University Medical Center Archives (DUMCA) offers graduate interns the opportunity to do a little of everything. During my two years with DUMCA, I processed diverse accessions to the collections; developed… MORE

Category: News

March is Women’s History Month! Learn more about Duke history by checking out our online exhibit: Women in Duke Health.

This exhibit highlights women in multiple fields at Duke, many of which were pioneers or firsts in their disciplines. It looks at their stories and the context in which those stories took place through oral histories. We encourage you to listen to the recordings or read the transcripts of these women talking about their experiences.  
Further historical perspective is presented through individual profiles and interviews, a general timeline of events, and background interviews conducted with people who have a longtime view of Duke Medicine.

View the online… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

“There are now, people of color all over Duke Hospital and no one thinks anything of it. That would be his legacy... He said to me that when the Black medical students began to come to do, and no longer sought him out, he understood that the institution had changed. For a very long time, they always would look around the faculty and probably take a wild guess that the one African-American physician or one of a couple, probably had some say in their being there. Right, so they will go and introduce themselves. But there came a time where that changed. And that was not probably not as early as you would think. I'm sure that was well into the 80s. And, you know, a few more of them, and fewer will come by to, you know, to get advice or counsel, and that kind of thing. But to me, his legacy… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

Museum of Durham History Presents E is for ESP  
On Display 
February 18th- March 18th  
Duke University Medical Center Library, Level 3

The Medical Center Library & Archives is happy to host another traveling exhibit from the Museum of Durham History (MoDH). As part of continuing programming for their current exhibit, 100 Year of Duke: Names to Remember, the MoDH developed a traveling version of E is for ESP. Originally part of the Durham A-Z series, this exhibit explores the legacy of JB and Louisa Rhine, and the Duke Parapsychology Department in the 20th century. Keep an eye out for the next location! 

Category: News

“It was interesting. It was 1969 when I first got here, and the hospital had sort of desegregated. And I say “sort of.” It's not a very exact term. On paper, it was, but in point of fact, it was not because there were private diagnostic clinic patients, and there were “staff patients.” In order to be a private patient, you would have to have money or insurance. Most of the African Americans and some poor whites did not have [those things]. So, they were in staff clinics, and you’ve probably seen some pictures of the clinics. They typically had two appointment times: 8 and 1. People would come very early hoping to get in line first. Some people would obviously sit there for hours waiting to be seen. There was a way of getting care and specialty care, but it was also really, really… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

“As I said before, we only had maybe three or four faculty at Duke at the time, who were black. Dr. Moore was the only black attending an OB-GYN. There was Dr. Johnson who was in internal medicine, Dr. Jacquelyne Jackson, who was there in sociology, and one other black physician in psychiatry. So once he saw me and some of the other black medical students, he invited us over to his home to meet his family. And just to kind of give us some semblance of being with someone that we could understand where we were, and kind of what we're trying to do. And he certainly gave us a lot of encouragement, in terms of being able to survive in any kind of environment. And, you know, he would constantly tell us that excellence will always prevail. So it didn't matter whether you're black, white,… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

“Every year we had registration, she would have a team of med students and doctors to give these kids physicals. [There] might be about 10 in the room, giving these kids physicals. She would ask for volunteers, but almost demand volunteers. They would be out there giving these kids free physicals, and that was done by her. And she kept a record on each kid, the whole thing. She kept and monitored that stuff, and tracked it all the way through the season, [making sure] that everything got better, even though they didn’t have real, real high blood pressure. But all that stuff got better as the season went along, and she kept a record of this. And then, if the kids had any kind of illness, or asthma, anything, she knew about it. [If] they needed medication, she would have medication.”  … MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Duke University Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the Robert L. Blake Papers have been reprocessed and are open for research. Bob Blake, as he was known to many, was a medical illustrator at Duke from 1943 to 1983 and served as Coordinator of the Department of Medical Illustration in the Duke University School of Medicine. The collection contains Blake’s professional papers and original artwork, including pen and ink drawings, pencil sketches, carbon dust drawings, scratchboard engravings, pen trials, watercolors, reprographic materials, photographs, negatives, scrapbooks, and commercially published works. Materials range in date from 1943 to 2005.

Category: Collection Spotlight

Take Two and Call Me in the Morning: The Story of Aspirin

Medical Center Library & Archives - Level 3

NLM Exhibit on Display until February 15, 2025

The Medical Center Library is hosting “Take Two and Call Me in the Morning: The Story of Aspirin,” a six-banner traveling exhibition. Developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, it chronicles the history of the ubiquitous wonder drug, from its ancient origins to the present day. For centuries, physicians and healers used willow bark to alleviate pain and… MORE

Category: News

Learn more about the activities and accomplishments of the Medical Center Library & Archives in our 2024 Annual Snapshot. 

We deliver collections, foster lifelong learning, capture institutional history, create connections, and promote discovery and inquiry. Our staff are our best resource and can guide you to the information you need for research, learning, and clinical care.

Category: News

Duke University was established in 1924 when James B. Duke, through the Indenture of Trust, designated a gift that transformed Trinity College into a comprehensive research university. The entire university is celebrating Duke’s centennial throughout the entire year of 2024. As part of the centennial celebrations, Duke is spotlighting important individuals from the past 100 years. This is the third and final post of our series rounding up the Duke Health individuals featured. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 here.

Onyekwere E. Akwari  
… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Medical Center Archives is always happy to welcome researchers to view materials in our reading room, but we recognize that it is not always possible for everyone to visit our physical location! The Archives has a variety of online resources to help users learn about the collections and the Medical Center’s history. One particularly great resource that we would like to highlight is digitized issues of Intercom. 

Duke Medicine’s primary news publication from 1953 to 1986, the Intercom featured information about campus construction and events, faculty and staff news, facts and figures, and articles about medical research and innovations at Duke. The first 25 years of the publication were digitized by the… MORE

Category: News

The Medical Center Library & Archives is excited to introduce a new exhibit, Faces of Duke Health, which celebrates the diverse roles that contribute to the Duke Health community. Kicking off the series, the exhibit will spotlight Environmental Services (EVS), including our own Library EVS staff, and offer a glimpse into the history of EVS at Duke.

Category: News

Every October, the Society of North Carolina Archivists celebrates Archives Month! This year’s theme, What Puts You on the Map?, brings to mind Duke University Medical Center’s SEDO system, a wayfinding system rolled out in 1971 that left its mark on the hospital. 

On March 5, 1971, a special issue of Intercom, the hospital’s weekly bulletin, devoted three of its four pages to the implementation of the new System of Environmental Direction and Orientation, or SEDO. SEDO was a mid-century modern wayfinding system based on eight color zones and hanging lighted signs, “similar to the… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

It Came from the Archives! Halloween Highlights from the Duke Medical Center Archives

Location: Medical Center Library & Archives, Level 1

Date: Thursday, October 31, 11am – 2pm

Please join us for the Duke University Medical Center Archives’ annual Halloween event! This casual open house event will feature a selection of odd, intriguing, and significant materials from our collections. 

All are invited to drop in to view detailed medical illustrations, touch old medical instruments, explore forgotten stories from the history of Duke Health, and much more. 

Come by for a fun break to learn some history and… MORE

Category: News