Wellcome Library

Collections

The library contains the following collections (subjects are in brackets)

Moving Image and Sound Collections
The collections comprise film and sound archives covering the many and varied aspects of medicine.,
(History, Life sciences, Medicine (occupation))

Science and Society Collections
These provide access to a collection of printed and electronic resources on current biomedical topics.,
(Alternative therapies, Anthropology, Health, Life sciences, Medical ethics, Medical sciences, Medicine (occupation), Philosophy)

Iconographic collections
A department of the Wellcome Library. Over 200,000 prints, photographs, drawings, paintings and other media, ranging in date from the 14th century to the present, and geographically from Japan and China in the east through Tibet and India to Turkey, Europe and the Americas, with smaller collections dealing with Africa and Australasia.,
(Biographies, Cultural activities, Health, History, History of medicine, Social systems)

British portraits
The portraits in the Wellcome Library do not form a single discrete collection: they are dispersed over several distinct collections, as follows (numbers include British and non-British unless otherwise indicated): 1. Archives and manuscripts. Portraits in this collection are mainly photographs. 2. Iconographic collections. Portrait prints (possibly about 15,000, of which about 9,000 are catalogued, and of which in turn about 3,500 are British); Portrait paintings (approx. 650); Portrait drawings (approx. 300); Portrait photographs (possibly 6,000, of which 3,000 catalogued); portrait sculpture (31). 3. Rare books (about 3,000 books containing unknown number of portraits, plus runs of periodicals) 4. Medical and History of medicine collections (books, periodicals and ephemera). In these collections, the number of book illustrations that are portraits is over 10,000,

History of Medicine Collection
The library includes extensive collections of books, manuscripts, archives, films, electronic resources and pictures on the history of medicine from the earliest times to the present day. ,
(Alternative therapies, Anthropology, Health, History, History of medicine, History of science, Life sciences, Medical ethics, Medical sciences, Medicine (occupation), Military history, Philosophy, Printing, Religion, Women)

Wellcome Images
Provides access to the visual resources of the Wellcome Library, from illustration in manuscripts and rare books to painting, prints and photographs. It also has a large collection off contemporary clinical and biomedical images.,
(History, Life sciences, Medicine (occupation))