Category Archives: CAHSLA Colleagues

Pharmacognosy and Farnsworth – a Project Update from the Lloyd Library

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.

Medical Illustration & Comics to Graphic Medicine Display at University of 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! 

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital – Preserving Our Collections

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. 

By Jim DaMico, Archivist, Cincinnati Children’s

Cincinnati Children’s History Walk 

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.

Submitted By: Jim DaMico, Archivist, Cincinnati Children’s

CAHSLA Colleagues