Lawrence Reynolds, M.D., at the opening reception of the Lawrence Reynolds Library, 1958. Lawrence Reynolds, M.D., an Alabama native, selected the medical school in Birmingham as home for his collection of more than 6,000 historical books, manuscripts and artifacts in 1958. Since then, UAB’s collection has grown to more 14,000 rare books, manuscripts, journals and pamphlets on medicine, science and health care dating from the 1300s through the mid 1900s.
In 2014, the children of Wayne H. Finley, professor emeritus in the Department of Genetics, provided a gift for an endowment to support the expansion of the medical collections, and it was renamed the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library.
You can explore the collections online and many items are available in their entirety in UAB Digital Collections.
The library, housed in the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, is one of three units that comprise UAB Historical Collections and is free and open to the public 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Researchers are asked to make an appointment.