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Wellcome Library

Hospital Infection Society


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 SA/HIS

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: Hospital Infection Society

Date(s): 1979-1995

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 13 boxes and 1 transfer box

Name of creator(s): Hospital Infection Society

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Hospital Infection Society was founded in 1979 to provide a scientific forum for medical microbiologists interested in various aspects of infection in hospital. Initially the Society was proposed to be a sub-group of a larger society, to be founded as the Society for Clinical Microbiology. However, a subsequent meeting of the steering committee determined that the new association should stand alone from the start as the Hospital Infection Society. Its objective was to promote the study of and facilitate the dissemination of information about all aspects of hospital infection and the importance of holding meetings and of co-operation with other societies was emphasised from the outset. Membership was to consist of medically-qualified microbiologists, with physicians and surgeons or non-medical microbiologists with a PhD or MRCPath and an active interest in hospital infection admissible on the discretion of the Council.

The Society meets several times a year, often in conjunction with other related societies, such as the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (whose archive is also held at the Wellcome Library), the Surgical Infection Study Group and the Infection Control Nurses Association (see Section B). The annual Lowbury Lecture, sponsored from the first by ICI, was named after Professor Edward Lowbury, the Society's first President, an expert in the field. The Society has also organised large three International Conferences on hospital infection (see Section G).

The work of publicising the issue of hospital infection was aided by the establishment of the Journal of Hospital Infection in 1980, which was associated with the Society from the outset and soon became its official publication (see E.1-2). The Society also undertook to carry out research in the field, by means of ad hoc working parties (see F.1) and to use the professional expertise of the membership to advise, comment on and publicise the work of others (see F.2).

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of the Hospital Infection Society chiefly comprising the papers collected by its officers, 1979-1995. They include membership records, council and AGM minutes, and papers from conferences and meetings.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

As ordered on arrival at the Wellcome Library, there were no continuous series, as procedures seem to have varied with changing personnel. Some files represented a roughly chronological arrangement, others were ordered by subject, but there was little consistency to the pattern. It was therefore decided to establish a set of classes which would form a logical arrangement, though attempting as far as possible not to disrupt any existing order. Where papers have been transferred from a series, this has been noted in the list. Some papers had been collected into subject files, though it is not clear by whom; this arrangement has been reflected in particular in sections F and G. It is expected that further deposits will be made and as far as possible the series have been numbered to allow for additions.

The collection is divided into sections as follows:

A MINUTES AND ASSOCIATED PAPERS: Minutes and associated papers of the Steering Group; Minutes and associated papers of Council Meetings; Minutes and associated papers of Annual General Meetings; Minutes and associated papers of Extraordinary General Meetings.

B MEETINGS: Minutes of Organising Committees; Programmes and associated papers; Lowbury Lecture.

C RECORDS OF OFFICERS: Chairman; Secretary; Treasurer; Meetings Secretary; Honorary Archivist.

D MEMBERSHIP: Membership records; Membership booklets; Newsletters and circulars.

E PUBLICATIONS: Minutes and associated papers of the Editorial Board and Sub-Committee of the Journal of Hospital Infection; Correspondence and papers relating to the Journal of Hospital Infection; Books.

F EXTERNAL RELATIONS: Working Parties; Evidence and opinions submitted to or by the HIS; Workshops and Courses; Awards; Relations with other infection control bodies.

G CONFERENCES: 1st International Conference, 1987; 2nd International Conference, 1990; 3rd International Conference, 1994.

H PAPERS OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY: Professor A M Emmerson; Dr A J Howard; Dr A Eastaway; Dr F Falkiner; Unidentified.

Conditions governing access:

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner. Copyright in the papers is retained by the Hospital Infection Society.

Finding aids:

The catalogue to this collection has not yet been fully converted to electronic form: for detail, and to order material, see hard-copy list available in the Wellcome Library. Copies of the catalogue are available on request.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

It is expected that further deposits will be made.

Archival history:

The honorary archivist of the Society, Dr. Philip Sanderson, had collected much of the material prior to his retirement in 1992; it had then passed on to Professor Michael Emmerson who had added some of his own papers to the archive.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The papers of the Hospital Infection Society (HIS) were deposited at the Wellcome Library in September 1995.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Related material:

In the Wellcome Library: The papers of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, which has held joint meetings with the Hospital Infection Society, are held as SA/AMC.

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions: In compliance with ISAD (G): General International Standard Archival Description - 2nd Edition (1999); UNESCO Thesaurus, December 2001; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Hospitals | Health services
Infection | Diseases | Pathology
Occupational health and safety | Working conditions | Conditions of employment | Personnel management | Organization and administration | Health services administration | Public administration | Government
Medical institutions
Microbiology

Personal names

Corporate names
Hospital Infection Society

Places