UAB Historical Collections

Formed in January of 1996, UAB Historical Collections is comprised of three units at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences, the Reynolds Historical Library, and the UAB Archives.   The Associate Director for Historical Collections is Michael A. Flannery.

     The Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences

The museum holds instruments, specimens and models used by health care professionals throughout the world and represents seven hundred years of medicine and ill health.  Experience the history of medicine and its immeasurable progress and devastating challenges through these instructive artifacts of health and healing.

The library contains rare books, pamphlets, and manuscripts in the history of medicine and health-related fields.  This collection dates from the mid 14th century to the early 20th century and includes a core of world-renowned medical classics with important concentrations on medicine in the Civil War, the South, and early Americana.

The archives is the repository for the permanent records of the University, but it also collects and preserves manuscripts that document the history of the health sciences.  University records and the manuscript collections include holograph letters, correspondence, photographs, diaries, ledgers, audio and videotapes, and university related realia and ephemera.