On January 31, Harvard's Open Collections Program (OCP) launched its third online collection, Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics. The new, web-accessible collection is online now at http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion.

Created with support from Arcadia, the new Contagion collection brings carefully selected historical materials from Harvard's renowned libraries, special collections, and archives to Internet users everywhere. The collection, which includes more than 500,000 pages of digitized books, serials, pamphlets, incunabula, and manuscripts, contributes to the understanding of the global, social-history, and public-policy implications of disease and offers important historical perspectives on the science and the public policy of epidemiology today.

In developing Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics, Harvard's Open Collections Program has been guided by a distinguished committee of Harvard faculty members: Allan Brandt, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine and Professor of the History of Science -- Harvard Medical School; Katharine Park, Samuel Zemurray, Jr., and Doris Zemurray Stone Radcliffe Professor of the History of Science -- Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Charles Rosenberg, Professor of the History of Science and Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Social Sciences -- Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Barbara Gutman Rosenkrantz, Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus -- Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Charles Rosenberg describes Contagion as "a wonderfully accessible and invaluable tool for the scholar or student at any level. It demonstrates not only that we need to think about disease and its history, but that we can think with it -- about society and its values, about government, and about changing ideas. It was an honor to have been associated with this innovative project."

Harvard libraries, special collections, and archives contributing to the Contagion collection include: Andover-Harvard Theological Library -- Harvard Divinity School Baker Library/Knowledge and Library Services -- Harvard Business School Center for the History of Medicine/Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine -- Harvard Medical School Government Documents/Microforms Collections/Social Sciences Program -- Harvard College Library Harvard Law School Library Harvard Map Collection/Social Sciences Program -- Harvard College Library Harvard University Archives -- Harvard University Library Harvard-Yenching Library -- Harvard College Library Houghton Library -- Harvard College Library Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America -- Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

For more information about Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics, visit http://hul.harvard.edu/news/2008_0204.html on the HUL web site.