Wiley Digital Archives  🎓

Alternate Titles: WDA

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Digitized archives of academic and scientific societies. UBC Library has purchased 4 archives: the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal Anthropological Institute, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Geographical Society.

The New York Academy of Sciences' archive encapsulates the history and development of natural science, technology and modern biomedical sciences, and documents anti-intellectualist sentiments towards scientists. The archive includes chronicles of efforts by governments and corporations to influence research into the exploitation of natural resources, labor conditions, and the environmental and economic impacts of mining, drilling, industrial waste and pollution.

Some of the collections contain files from the Academy’s influential mid-twentieth century Committee on the Human Rights of Scientists and records from many seminal Academy scientific events––including a 1946 landmark conference on the development of antibiotics, a groundbreaking 1965 conference on the biological effects of asbestos, and the world’s first conference on AIDS in 1984.

The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland archive includes a 150,000-image library of ethnographic photographs dating back to the 1860s. Those images were captured by anthropologists, ethnologists and ethnographic photographers, and include historic prints, lantern slides, drawings and paintings, illustrating diverse world cultures. The collections include illustrations, sketches, maps, fieldwork, notes and correspondence from Bronislaw Malinowski, William Buller Fagg, Rosemary Harris, Charles Gabriel Seligman, Edward Horace Man, Alfred Cort Haddon, Lady Vera Delves Broughton, Thomas Henry Huxley, Audrey Richards, Northcote W. Thomas, Robert Sutherland Rattray, and Peter Morton Williams.

The Royal College of Physicians archive, which ranges from the year 1205 through 1980, reflects the history and development of modern Western medicine, while documenting the interactions of the medical community with monarchs, politicians, and the general public. Collections within this two-million-image archive cover a broad range of topics, from astronomy and anatomical studies to neurology and botanical research.

The Royal Geographic Society has been home to notable scientists, geographers and explorers who’ve helped understand and map the world as we know it. Spanning 1478 to 1953, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) digital archive contains more than 150,000 maps, charts and atlases complemented by manuscripts, field notes, expedition reports, scrapbooks, correspondence, diaries, illustrations, and sketches. Notable RGS members and contributors whose works can be found in this archive include Gertrude Bell, John Hanning Speke, David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott, Richard Francis Burton, Ernest Shackleton, and Edmund Hillary.

 Access open only to UBC students, faculty, staff and on-site Library users (other restrictions may apply)

Permitted Uses
Research or Private Study? Yes
Linking? Yes
Learning Management System? Yes
Text and Data Mining? No
Alumni Access? Yes
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General; History; Medicine

Images, Maps, Primary Sources