Funding Success for Museum Collection

Iron lung, built at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, 1937, MHC Collection 997.019.003

We are excited to announce that Ontario’s Museums and Technology Fund has granted $15,000 to the Museum of Health Care for the development of a new feature on our website entitled “From the Collection”. To be developed over the next year, this page will include a series of short illustrated profiles for various objects, images, and documents drawn from the MHC collections. The subjects of these profiles will include artefacts, drawings, books, documents, works of art, and photographs representing various collections, themes, historical events, persons, medical disciplines, curiosities, and “treasures” currently held in MHC artefact and archival holdings.

Although most of this material is currently available for viewing on our publicly accessible online collections catalogue, we know that many of our most intriguing items are largely hidden from the average visitor to the Museum’s website, particularly from people who may not feel comfortable navigating a database. Another disadvantage is that the artefacts in the catalogue are not searchable from outside the website. It will now be possible to search for objects featured in the new artefact profiles with Google and other external search engines.

Enema Syringe, circa 1800, MHC Collection 002.050.006 a-d

Another goal of “From the Collection” is an “added value” component for each object. For each artefact and image profiled, we want to provide a more complete interpretation of what those items are and how they fit into broader themes. The new artefact profiles will also provide links to other similar objects in the collection, thus making searching on a health care subject even easier than before.

We want to involve the public more with our collection. “From the Collection” will include a link to a newly created online forum included with each profile. In this way we hope to provide an opportunity for user-generated content through community contribution, discussion, and interaction.

Watch this site for further information as the project gets under way!

Paul Robertson
Curator