Cecil was married to long time CAHSLA member Emily Rahe for 66 years. Emily was a 30-year librarian at Merrill Dow, a pharmaceutical company with research labs in Reading, Ohio. Emily passed away in 2018 at the age of 90.
Cecil was a veteran of World War II who used the GI Bill to pursue an MBA at Xavier University. For most of his career, Cecil was an industrial engineer. Among the jobs he held, Cecil worked for 17 years at the U.S. Department of Energy facility, Fernald, in Ross, Ohio.
At first, Cecil attended the CAHSLA social events with Emily, but then began to regularly attend all of our meetings. He was made a lifetime member of CAHSLA alongside Emily in 1997/1998.
Emily and Cecil Rahe at CAHSLA Holiday Winery Party, 1998Cecil and Emily Rahe at CAHSLA Meeting, Golden Lamb, 2000
You could not have met a nicer person. He always had a greeting and a smile for everyone. If you have ever heard someone described as “having a twinkle in their eye”, Cecil fit that description.
Cecil Rahe at CAHSLA Summer Picnic, June 2002
From his obituary we learned that Cecil stayed active in his church and many other organizations, including being a poll worker on election days, after his retirement. I would occasionally see Cecil at Playhouse in the Park in recent years.
Submitted By: Christine Jankowski, MA (Lloyd Library)
It’s a cold winter’s night on December 23, 1839. In Worthington, Ohio, a mob of townspeople carrying rifles and torches hurries towards Worthington Medical College, located near the center of the town. Students and faculty had an hour’s notice before the townsfolk burst into the Medical Department, looting the space before setting the building ablaze. Even the college president, Dr. Thomas Vaughan Morrow, received threats ahead of a raid at his home, where an even more horrifying discovery was made. The college had only been there for nine years. What could have caused this unrest? And how did this incident launch the Eclectics in Cincinnati?
Dr. Wooster Beach started the medical movement known as Reformed Medicine in New York during the 1820s, with a focus on treating patients with non-invasive methods. Instead of practicing bleeding, leeching, or purging, its medical students learned about herbal remedies to treat patients. With a desire to spread this education westward, Beach’s colleague Dr. John J. Steele founded the Medical Department at Worthington Medical College in 1830, the precursor to the Eclectic Medical Institute, later known as the Eclectic Medical College, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Shortly after, Dr. Thomas Vaughan Morrow would become the college president.
At Worthington, students learned subjects like anatomy, botany, chemistry, obstetrics, surgery, and physiology and were taught by doctors Steele, Ichabod G. Jones, J.R. Paddock, J.E. Riddle, T.E. Mason, J.D. Day, and Morrow. However, there was a macabre side to their schooling. Medical education at this time relied on the commonplace use of cadavers, and Worthington Medical College was no exception. Further understanding the functions of the human body and its contents required autopsies on the recently deceased, but sourcing these “specimens” could be difficult. Utilizing paupers’ graves in local cemeteries, medical students, instructors, and occasionally shady characters known as “resurrection men,” exhumed freshly buried bodies for use in medical education. The questionable ethics of that practice did not go unnoticed by the Worthington community, causing rumors to spread around town about the college and students. And it was one rumor about one body that would cause such an uproar.
Her name was Sally Dodge Cram. Originally from Marietta, Ohio, she was a patient at the State Insane Asylum in Columbus when she died on November 18, 1839, aged 56. Her family did not arrive in time to collect her remains for burial back home, so she was buried outside Columbus’s city limits in a pauper’s field. When her family arrived at the cemetery, they noticed her gravesite was disturbed, as were others nearby. Word quickly went around town, alleging that Worthington Medical students retrieved her body for a future autopsy. A meeting was held, and townsfolk resolved to raid the Medical College and the college president’s home. Dr. Morrow, standing outside his house with his family, witnessed the rioters enter their home. The townspeople discovered in the backyard and partially concealed in a corn stock the body of an African American man. This atrocious discovery was the final nail in the coffin for the college’s operations.
Before the horrors of December 1839, the college was still reeling from the Panic of 1837. The national depression brought job uncertainty, failed businesses and banks, and affected the attendance and finances of the school. Another damning circumstance was their battle of words with the Thomsonians in nearby Columbus, each faction accusing the other of plagiarism and poor science. The combination of the above situations caused the school’s charter to be revoked in March 1840.
Dr. Morrow continued to hold classes at his home. He rebranded the school as the Reformed Medical School, chartered in 1842 and operated until 1845. Relocating to Cincinnati, his new school and charter were established on March 10, 1845: the Eclectic Medical College. The topics taught were the same, and Dr. Morrow brought previous instructors to the new college. Despite the macabre past practices, the Eclectic Medical College evolved with time and had thousands of graduates while it was open. Later known as the Eclectic Medical Institute, they would hold classes until 1939 and close in 1942.
Today, the Lloyd Library still holds most of the Eclectic Medical College’s records for the curious to learn more.
Held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from April 30 – May 2, the annual Medical Library Association conference was great as always, despite having to make some last mintue pivots due to travel restrictions for employees of the NIH. One major pivot was having to find a replacement for our chosen main speaker. The planning committee asked a group of medical students from StreetMedicine@Pitt to fill in, and they shared their experiences about the “student-run interdisciplinary organization that strives to bring healthcare and social support to the rough-sleeping and unhoused community in Pittsburgh.” Hearing the students describe the Street Medicine team was very inspiring as they shared stories about the rounds they make every Wednesday and the connections they make with the community.
From the sessions I chose to attend, three major themes emerged: systematic review services and support; AI impact and ethical concerns; and inclusive hiring practices and onboarding. One interesting place two of the themes overlapped was in a paper session called “Anything You Can Do, AI Can Do Better… or Can It? Comparing ChatGPT’s Search Strategy Outputs with Cochrane Review Searches” presented by a group of librarians from UNC Chapel Hill. The librarians studied ChatGPT’s current capabilities to produce comprehensive searches for systematic reviews. They compared human created searches to GenAI produced searches, using nine published Cochrane reviews for the comparisons. They did find a few pros but many cons to using ChatGPT to produce comprehensive searches. The pros: it was a bit of a time saver, and there were very few errors with syntax and logic. Cons included: fake MeSH terms, duplicative and lengthy keyword search phrases, lower recall than human searches, inability to reliably access and replicate validated filters, and high variability of results based on models and prompts. Their research confirms what I have seen using GenAI in research – it can be helpful to give broad outlines or to get started on a project, but human intervention is still necessary. The full slide presentation is available online.
Many sessions surrounding AI were focused on (or at least touched on) ethical issues and environmental impact of Generative AI. It was clear that many librarians are very concerned about the use of AI. One librarian, calling herself A Librarian Against AI, shared a zine she created that covers many of these issues. In a separate presentation, one librarian gave tips to help mitigate the environmental impact of AI use, such as: utilizing AI tools to fit the task, like pre-trained small models for simpler tasks; using efficient prompting; and avoiding generating unnecessary images. This one especially hit me – I learned that image generation uses three times the energy of a GenAI text inference, which already requires a lot of energy.
I truly enjoy attending the annual MLA conference, this was the third year I’ve gone. I learn so much as a health sciences librarian and have fun networking. Finding people who also nerd out about systematic reviews is always a great time. And, I like to treat myself to local food. If you are in Pittsburgh in the near future, I highly recommend Bar Marco. MLA 2026 will be in Milwaukee, and I’ll certainly be attending!
Submitted by Lynn Warner, University of Cincinnati
Greetings from the Lloyd Library & Museum! This is Christine Jankowski, Archivist and Records Coordinator, reporting on an ongoing project that interns and I have been working on. The project is part of the never-ending processing of the Norman R. Farnsworth Papers and his work in the field of pharmacognosy. Pharmacognosy is a branch of pharmacology concerned with the physical characteristics and natural sources of medicine (per Steadman’s Concise Medical Dictionary) and Farnsworth was a renowned pharmacognosist who taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) during the 1970s and was involved with the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP) until his death in 2011.
One project Farnsworth was deeply involved with of was NAPRAlert or NAtural PRoduct Alert. It was an online database of natural products, ethnomedicine, pharmacology, and botany. Its sources include ethnomedical information, pharmacological/biochemical information of extracts of organisms, case reports, clinical and non-clinical studies. Farnsworth first began work on NAPRAlert when he was assigned to the Botanical Codex Committee of the ASP. This research was based on work by Dr. Eldin V. Lynn, who compiled monographs on the phytochemical components of various botanicals. Farnsworth served as an editor for some of Lynn’s publications and from 1975-1980, Farnsworth amassed hundreds and thousands of research articles, papers, and book chapters. Some of these were then organized into Volume 8 of Lynn’s Index, but the remaining lead to the creation of NAPRAlert.
The database amassed over 200,000 articles and scientific papers. With the bulk dates from 1975-2005, there are far older articles that were photocopied out of books – some dating to the 1800s! Users included graduate and doctoral students at UIC and members of the ASP. Eventually, online access to this research had a paywall attached to it. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources, the database went offline around 2020. Due to budget and the frequency of papers released online, they estimated they only had 20% of all published papers fitting NAPRAlerts criteria from 2005-2020.
Although NAPRAlert.org is offline, the physical articles still live on in the basement of the Lloyd. Well over 100 double banker boxes house the thousands of physical copies of the articles, each with its own unique identifiable code written on them and a bonus of occasional notes made by Farnsworth or his students or peers. Some of the original IBM cards used to identify each article remain in the collection too! Aside from Farnsworth’s book collection, this was the largest portion of his papers that remained to be processed. Because of NAPRAlert’s offline status, some unique research requests we’ve received, and the need to rehouse all these papers, I had a crazy idea: recreate NAPRAlert for our researchers.
Organizing thousands of articles at essentially item level is an outstanding task to perform. Thankfully, I’ve had a number of interns to keep the project moving. They continually review and rehouse the paper materials of the Farnsworth collection. I always hope for the day that everything Farnsworth is organized and processed and properly ready for researchers because it all has been, admittedly, chaos. I know that this is a slight setback. However, I believe that this will be a tool essential for remote researchers and members of the ASP and will be a huge payoff by ultimately garnering more interest in the Farnsworth papers.
Farnsworth speaking at the ASP Annual Meeting, 2006. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.
Examples of the double banker boxes in the Lloyd archives, c.2012. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.
An example of some of the papers being rehoused in the NAPRAlert series of the Norman R. Farnsworth Papers. Note its identifying number in the bottom right margin. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.
We also have a new display put together by librarian Melissa Previtera: From Medical Illustration & Comics to Graphic Medicine, which highlights our new collection of Graphic Medicine books and medical illustration through the years. Stop by and check it out, and there is even a creation station where you make your own graphic medicine comic!
In November 2024, Cincinnati Children’s Mitchell-Nelson History Library, Archives and Museum (MNHLAM) had much needed UV film applied on the library windows.
The MNHLAM is in the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building’s original Research Foundation Library, that opened in 1931 and is the last of the original Burnet campus. The building and the foundation exist due to the generous donation from William Cooper Procter who announced on January 4th, 1928 a $2.5 million gift to construct and endow the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation.
Fun fact: Louise Sias, who received library training at the University of Wisconsin in 1915-1916 became the first librarian in the late 1930’s after working at the Henry Ford Hospital library. Sias worked at CCHMC for 30 years, building the library from scratch.
While long term damage from the sun’s UV rays have done considerable damage to the bindings of our early patient histoires, the goal of the UV film is to slow the deterioration of all the artifacts and bound volumes currently stored in the space.
Funding for the UV film was generously provided by the Co-operative Society, the Hospital’s oldest philanthropic organization. The Co-operative Society, founded in January 1884, has given more than $14 million to various programs at the medical center, including the Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children, the International Adoption Center and our Pediatric Primary Care Clinics. Additionally, members give generously of their time. They volunteer in an on-site sewing room where dedicated stitchers create children’s clothing, blankets and quilts for beds and cribs, toys for use by the Division of Child Life, soft helmets for patients with neurological disorders and teaching tools used by the nursing staff. They also brighten the medical center by decorating lobbies and public spaces for the holidays.
To prepare for the installation, I had to move all artifacts including some small bookcases, away from the windows. One snag that I ran into was moving a large, wheeled rack of hemofiltration equipment. The rubber on the wheels had deteriorated (it had been sitting in the sun since 2012!) to the point of breaking off in chunks so our Facilities team had to use a pallet jack to move it. Luckily, they will be able to replace the wheels when time permits. Once everything was moved, Environmental Services came in to clean the windows and window coverings and vacuum the sills. The next day, the vendor came to apply the UV film on all 15 window coverings. Another snag that happened is with the largest pane that was actually plexiglass which required a different type of substrate that the crew didn’t have. Thankfully, the material arrived and it was successfully applied. The next day Facilities came back to reinstall the covers and I put the room back together. In all, it took five days to complete the project.
Exterior of the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building, 2013Close-up of deterioration of wheelWindow before cleaning and UV film applicationPatient histories showing direct UV damage to the bindings of the volumesPlexiglass covers removed from the original windows to prepare for cleaningEnvironmental Services team cleaning windows and window coversPlexiglass cover being cleanedPlexiglass cover with UV film appliedTreated windowsHemofiltration equipment rack. The wheels had deteriorated to the point where a pallet jack was needed to move it away from the window
The Cincinnati Children’s History Walk for the Burnet Campus launched on October 10, 2024, bringing to life decades of work of thousands of employees who have positioned us to be the leader in child health.
Laura Werts, Pratt Library director, was inspired after learning about the Boston Children’s Hospital History Trail from their archivist in 2019. Laura brought the idea to the History Committee and Kevin Proffitt, Archivist at the time began research into developing a history walk here.
As the first full time Archivist, I was able to devote more time to planning and outreach across multiple departments to ensure a successful outcome.
Over 20 employees were involved, and they came from Design-Construction-Space Management, Marketing and Communications, Creative Services, Language Access Services.
Early on, we also aimed to make the experience inclusive–in line with our DEI commitment. We engaged Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Employee Resource Groups, Family Relations and the Family Advisory Council to make it accessible to those with mobility challenges and available in the three languages–English, Spanish and Arabic.
The walk features 14 stops for employees. You can download a PDF of the map in the three languages from History Walk. It is also printed in English and available at the Welcome Desks and Family Resource Center. You can begin the walk at any point but if you want to follow the map route, it starts at Seacrest Studio in Location D.
Each marker has a QR code which takes you to the stop on the History Walk website. You have the option to listen to narration in English, Spanish and Arabic. Maps in all three languages are available as PDF’s.
For more information about the Cincinnati Children’s Archives, please visit our website.
Jim DaMico, Cincinnati Children’s Archivist leading a tour groupRotary Polio Plus SculptureRonald McDonald HouseEntrance to The Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building
Submitted By: Jim DaMico, Archivist, Cincinnati Children’s
Kudos to former CAHSLA President Alex Temple on his permanent position at the UC Archives and Rare Books (ARB) Library. Congrats, Alex!
Lynn Warner (UC Health Sciences Library) presented “Using a Practice Search Set to Teach Students Advanced Searching for Integrative Reviews” at the Medical Library Association annual conference in Portland, Oregon in May 2024
Two CAHSLA members presented at the Midwest Medical Library Association virtual conference in October 2024:
