John P. McGovern Historical Collections, Texas Medical Center Library

The John P. McGovern Historical Collections at the Texas Medical Center Library has one of the most extensive collections of rare medical texts in the country. Their gout and arthritis section is particularly strong. I didn't know gout was such a big thing back in the day, but aparently it required a lot of thought on the part of the 17th century medical community. The electronic texts section of the site represents the beginning of an extensive digitization effort, with many texts available as high quality scans. The electronic texts home page is simple. Indices are available organized alphabetically by author, by title, or by subject. The links to the scanned images contain bibliographic information. The link leads to the first page of text, with links to the other available scans from the same volume located to the right of the image. It is possible to enlarge the image by clicking on it, although no metadata is available regarding the digitization process or the digital images themselves.

The primary audience for this collection is researchers and the general public, although there is limited information provided about the collections and the primary goal of the project is access to the texts themselves. The project is not comprehensive (although it is ongoing) and the images are not considered preservation copies. THe number of scans available for each text is limited, and in some cases only the front matter is available, which doesn't seem to make sense if the goal is access to the information. The institution is working to provide online access to most of its collections in the simplest, most straightforward way possible with limited resources, but they do have a long way to go.