From the Dental Archives

Authors | Topics | Forthcoming


About this Site

Background & Editorial Responsibility

This site came to be through the convergence of interested faculty at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and the physical deterioration of the older journal volumes in the collection of the UM Dentistry Library. Review of the older journal volumes by a conservation expert indicated that much of that part of the collection was already too brittle for interventions designed to save the original. While options are being explored to save large portions of the collection, faculty expressed an interest in finding an interim solution to identify and make available the more important articles from this collection. The collection is restricted from photocopying without the permission of the librarian, which allowed us to identify selected articles which are still in demand. Other criteria were developed to reflect the breadth and diversity of this important collection. This initial draft version of From the Dental Archives is a rough prototype for purposes of demonstration and to solicit feedback. Feedback may be sent to Pat Anderson, Head, Dentistry Library, University of Michigan, pfa@umich.edu.

Scope & Selection Criteria

About the Banner

The background of the banner is a selection from the April 1924 cover of the Journal of the American Dental Association, the same issue which announced the first meeting of the American Academy of Dental Schools. The background color of the covers at that time was lavender, the official color of the profession of Dentistry. (Vacanti, 1983).

About the Icon

The caduceus which is being used as the icon or logo of the site was scanned from an article by William Gies in the Journal of the Allied Dental Societies. This article was entitled: Independent Journalism Versus Trade Journalism in Dentistry. and was the beginning of a vigorous debate about the merits and drawbacks of commercial subsidies for research journals. In this article, Gies particularly criticized Dental Cosmos, which was actually one of the most relied upon dental journals of the day. The logo is actually the Dental Cosmos logo (as reproduced in the Gies article criticizing it), and was associated with the slogan: "Observe, compare, reflect, record."

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URL of this page: http://www.umich.edu/~pfa/denthist/about.html
Feedback to Patricia Anderson: pfa@umich.edu
Date last edited: May 13, 1999.