@article{904085,
      note = {Date range: 1554-1954.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/904085},
      title = {Sexual history and sexology books.},
      abstract = {The New York Academy of Medicine was established in 1847  as an independent organization interested in regulating and  improving the profession of medicine in New York City and  in promoting the health of the public. The Academy is  currently dedicated to ensuring everyone has the  opportunity to live a healthy life. Through original  research, policy and program initiatives, the Academy  provides the evidence base to address the structural and  cultural barriers to good health and drive progress toward  health equity. The library collections have been an  integral part of the Academy since the beginning. The first  gift to the library, a set of Martin Payne's Commentaries,  was presented at the second meeting of the organization on  January 13, 1847. Initially conceived of as a collection of  contemporary materials for the use of the Fellows, the  collection expanded well beyond that because of the  interest of many of the early Fellows in the history of  medicine. A vote to make the library accessible to the  public in 1878 opened the door to a wider range of  exchanges, gifts and purchases. The library was then, and  continues to be, the only medical library in the city of  New York open to anyone who wishes to use its collections.  The library contains over 550,000 volumes (including a rare  book collection of approximately 32,000 volumes), about  275,000 portraits and illustrations, approximately 400,000  pamphlets, and over 1,600 linear feet of manuscripts and  archives. Together, these materials are an extraordinary  resource, providing insights into the formative texts and  medical thinking in which contemporary practice is rooted,  and demonstrate our attempts to understand our bodies,  minds, and health across time and culture. Western medical  texts from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries are a  particular area of strength of the rare book collection,  with strong holdings in the 19th and 20th centuries that  form the major part of what we consider to be the  historical part of the library's holdings. The Academy  Library traditionally collected in all areas of medicine  and its allied fields, and consequently accumulated  extensive holdings in many subjects, including women's  medicine, midwifery, gynecology and obstetrics, and a wide  range of materials about sex and sexuality. Advice books  for parents and children are an especially strong part of  the collection, including sexual advice guides, some by  physicians, for both men and women; marriage manuals; birth  control books; books advising parents on how to share  information about sex with their children, many of them  written by women; and cautionary works about the dangers of  self-gratification. Like a number other libraries, the  Academy restricted the use of some of these materials for  decades, storing books in a locked section of the stacks. A  set of catalog descriptions, with prescriptive comments  about each item, including the intended audience and notes  about how accurate or useful the content appeared to be,  was located near the reference desk as a guide for library  staff to use when these items were requested. Although  restrictions on library use were removed long ago, the  remnants of that system remain visible in subtle ways. The  main class mark for books about sexuality is S102, but  subclassifications distinguish books available only to  physicians (S102A) from those that were locked but  available to the general public (S102B) and those that were  openly shelved and available to anyone for consultation  (S102C). In Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth  Century, more than 1,500 books covering topics in sex,  sexuality, and gender, some dating from the 16th century,  from the Academy Library collection are presented, bridging  the history of medicine, the humanities, and the arts. This  collection of rare and unique materials provides context to  the study of sex and sexuality in human history, offering a  wide variety of scientific and literary texts in English,  German, French, Old High German, Latin, Italian, Spanish,  Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Old English, and Yiddish.},
      recid = {904085},
      pages = {1 online resource (1,580 monographs).},
}