Index to the Australian Medical Association Archive
About
Background
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Archive was initially given to the Brownless Biomedical Library in 1994 to maintain as part of the breakup of the library of the AMA Victorian office. Many objects, such as medical certificates, were given to The University of Melbourne’s Medical History Museum at the same time and a collection of rare books and journals were given to the Monash University Library. The archive is not an archive of the business of the AMA office and doesn’t have project files or minutes of AMA meetings. The archive was set up as a historical collection developed by Ann Tovell working with Bryan Gandevia. Notes and manuscripts submitted by doctors to the association office went in to the archive. The archive comprises a large numbers of newspaper cuttings and article reprints.
Reference: Rowse, Dorothea. The AMA Archives Collection at the Brownless Biomedical Library. Chiron Magazine, 1995, p. 66. Also available at: https://medicine.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/2011093/UDS2015372-13.pdf
The website
This website is a replicate of the archive’s index which was originally set-up as a card catalogue. From the people and organisation entries on the website, there is a link to a drawer that also includes the card number (see for example: Harry Brookes Allen). It is possible to browse through cards in a PDF in a similar way to how they would browse through cards in a drawer, rather than having to open each card individually.