WorldCat-OCLC The Library Collection Historical Journals How to use the Library Books and Manuscripts Fellowships & Grants Mesmer Book Exhibit Contact Librarian

The Library Collection
The Bakken's library collection includes approximately 11,000 books, journals, and manuscripts. The subject of the collections is the history of electricity and magnetism with a focus on their roles in the life sciences and medicine. Thus, it includes works in early physics (natural philosophy) and early works on magnetic cures, electrotherapeutics, electrophysiology, and their accompanying instrumentation. The Bakken also possesses a fine collection of primary sources in mesmerism, animal magnetism, and hypnotism, and works documenting the history of para-psychology, psychical research, and phrenology. Additionally, there are some important early works on anatomy, physiology, neurology, acupuncture, and medicinal herbs.

Although primary sources date from the 13th century, the collecting emphasis is on the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Significant holdings include many of the writings of Hauksbee, Nollet, Franklin, Mesmer, Galvani, Volta, Matteucci, Du Bois-Reymond, Marey, and Einthoven, to name some of the most well-known. Also of interest to researchers are collections of 19th-century medical and electro-medical ephemera (about 300 advertisements, programs, postcards, broadsides, circulars, and pamphlets) and miscellaneous scientists' letters from the 18th-20th centuries.

While the manuscript collection is not large, there are several fine items, a couple of which deserve special mention here:   the Mesmerism and Animal Magnetism manuscripts collection, 1784-1787, which consists of fifty-six items of correspondence between the leaders of the French mesmerist movement in Paris and their disciples in Amiens, including letters, contracts, circulars, receipts, membership lists, and notebooks.   A few of these are featured on our on-line Mesmer Book Exhibit (click on link above).   Another is Paul Richer’s Paralysies et contractures hysteriques; mémoire presenté au concours de l’année 1883 pour le prix fondé par M. Bernard de Civrieux.   In one volume, it includes handwritten text and illustrative material consisting of several drawings, photographs, myograms, and printed and drawn charts, graphs, and diagrams.   The book was published in Paris , by O. Doin, in 1892 (a copy of which is also held by the Bakken).

There is a collection of about 400 trade catalogues and price lists representing the products of nearly 250 companies. Most of them were published during the period of 1850-1930, although there are a few from the second half of the 18^th c. These catalogues offer for sale electrical apparatus, scientific instruments, and surgical and medical equipment (including electro-medical apparatus). Several countries' products are represented, including England, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Scandanavian countries, and the U.S.A. These catalogues provide technical descriptions, clear illustrations, directions for use, and prices for a wide range of instruments and accessories.

A support collection of histories, biographies, and reference works is located in the library's reading room. Books from the library do not circulate and there is no open browsing of the research collection (the stacks are closed). Readers are welcome to browse in the secondary and reference sections.

Pioneers of the Medical Device Industry in Minnesota : An Oral History Collection

Otto Schmitt, Biophysicist and Inventor Extraordinaire

A Bibliography of Secondary Literature on the History of Electricity and Magnetism in Medicine and the Life Sciences

Historical Journals
The historical journal collection consists of periodicals published between 1665 and 1940. It comprises 231 titles, about three-fourths of which (168) are represented by four volumes or fewer. Of these 168 titles, eleven are 18th c., 106 are 19th c., and fifty-one are 20th c. These volumes were usually acquired for single articles or because that was all available; examples include the first volume (1842-1843) of a scarce American magazine called The Magnet, devoted to articles exploring magnetic forces in relation to human magnetism, a single volume from 1897 of The Electro-therapeutist, and volumes one and two of The Electrical Age for Women, 1926-1935, which dropped its gender and changed its name to The Electrical Age in 1932.

The remaining sixty-three journal titles are represented by longer or complete runs. Two are 17th c., eleven are 18th c., thirty-one are 19th c. (or began in those centuries), and nineteen are 20th c. The longest continuous run is the Philosophical Transactions published by the Royal Society of London beginning in 1665. Other lengthy runs include the Annalen der Physik (1795 on), the Philosophical Magazine (1798 on), the Journal de Physique, 1771-1817, the Journal für Chemie und Physik, 1811-1833, the Opuscoli Scelti sulle Scienze, 1778-1803, the 1792-1795 series of "Brugnatelli’s Journal" entitled the Giornale fisico-medico, and three titles from the Academy of Sciences at Bologna, the Commentarii, 1748-1791, the Memorie, 1850-1907, and the Novi commentarii, 1834-1849.

There are incomplete but goodly portions of the Annals of Electricity, Magnetism and Chemistry, 1837-1842, the Année Electrique, Electrotherapique, et Radiographique, 1901-1909, The Doctor, a medical and philosophical penny magazine, 1833-1836, and Isis… von Oken, 1817-1836, among others. Many journals undergo name-changes in their lifetime. One example is a French journal that began as the Annales du Magnétisme Animal (1814-1816), became the Bibliothèque du Magnétisme Animal (1817-1819), then the Archives du Magnétisme Animal (1820-1823). Other journals on this subject include the Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus, 1817-1824, and The Zoist, 1844-1856.

The Journal du Galvanisme, de Vaccine, etc. is in a category all its own - it is the shortest complete run as well as one of the rarest journals in the collection. Published in 1803 in Paris, it consists of two volumes bound together as one and contains articles about vaccination, galvanism, and electrical medicine. The historical journal collection is informally catalogued on cards, providing verified titles, place of publication, and Bakken holdings. For further information, contact the librarian at ihrig@thebakken.org.

How to Use the Library 
The collections are open by appointment to all researchers from 9 to 5, Monday-Friday except holidays, free of charge. Researchers are requested to make appointments in advance with the librarian, Elizabeth Ihrig, at 612-926-3878, ext. 227, or ihrig@thebakken.org, or by writing her at the Bakken address. Books from the library do not circulate. Reference service to researchers unable to come to The Bakken is provided by telephone, email, mail, and fax. For a modest fee, limited numbers of photocopies, scans, or photographs may be made, provided it can be done without damaging the book or item and the request complies with the copyright law.

There are several finding aids to the library collection that researchers may consult. In the library itself is a card catalog that may be searched by author, title, subject, added entry, and date of publication. There is also an inventory of the ephemera collection and a listing of journal titles and holdings.

WorldCat-OCLC
In 1991, The Bakken initiated the retrospective conversion of much of its card catalog into the OCLC union catalog, and since 1992 all current cataloging has been done on OCLC's WorldCat; thus off-site researchers may use OCLC's WorldCat terminals at their local public, college, or university library to search for Bakken holdings. Off-site researchers led to this page via WorldCat, Google, Yahoo!, and others, can search the list below, Books and Manuscripts of the Bakken, but should be aware that it contains only about half of the library's holdings.  For Bakken holdings that appear on WorldCat but not on the list below, please contact the librarian, whose email address is featured several times on this page, or click on "Contact Librarian" above.

Search OCLC's WorldCat in the search box shown here. Each linked result leads to a "Find in a Library" information page. From there, you can enter geographic information such as a zip code or state, receive a list of nearby libraries that own the item, and link right to a library's online catalog record to initiate circulation activity or access electronic content directly.

Books and Manuscripts of the Bakken
Books and Manuscripts of the Bakken, containing almost 5,200 entries arranged by author within four chronological groupings, was published in 1992 by Scarecrow Press, and is available in the reference room of many libraries. What follows is the on-line version of that list. Researchers should be aware that it contains about half of the Bakken's library collection. It does not contain the ephemera, reference or secondary works, journals, or any works acquired since 1992. Please contact the librarian, Elizabeth Ihrig, at 612-926-3878, ext. 227, or ihrig@thebakken.org for more complete information about Bakken library holdings.

Pre-Eighteenth Century Books and Manuscripts at the Bakken

Eighteenth Century Books and Manuscripts at the Bakken

Nineteenth Century Books and Manuscripts at the Bakken

Twentieth Century Books and Manuscripts at the Bakken

Museum Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10 to 5
Thursdays 10 am to  8pm 
Closed Major Holidays
Library Hours: Monday - Friday 9 to 4:30

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© The Bakken Updated: April 6, 2007