Shown here is the insignia of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association (later the SSA) as it first appeared on the title page of Volume II (1889).
Transactions of the Southern Surgical Association Digital Collection (Volumes 1 - 108)
Since the association's first annual meeting on December 4-6, 1888, the publication of annual transactions has followed. These transactions include proceedings of the meetings as well as a publication of the scientific papers read therein, with transcriptions of subsequent paper discussions.
In 1987, Lister Hill Library (now part of UAB Libraries) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham became the official archival repository for the SSA. The Reynolds-Finley Historical Library holds all archival copies of the association’s transactions, and the UAB Archives holds the remainder of the association’s archives.
In the Summer of 2017, archival volumes of the transactions through the copyright-determined date of 1997 were sent to the Crowley Company of Frederick, Maryland, for scanning. After their return, the staff of the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library arranged the pdf files, developed article-level and volume-level metadata, and uploaded the files into the UAB Digital Collections, which is hosted by OCLC's CONTENTdm. All 108 volumes are now full-text searchable, and CONTENTdm allows terms, names and keywords to be searched across all volumes of the transactions (and only the transactions) at one time.
This digital collection was developed under the auspices of the Southern Surgical Association, and with funding from the Joseph M. Donald Memorial Endowment of the UAB Department of Surgery to support the SSA historical collection. Dr. Donald was a respected Birmingham surgeon who passed away just two months after his election to the SSA's presidency in December of 1960.
Click on the guide links above to learn more about the SSA, how to use the digital collection, and to trace the development of select surgical topics through the 108 years of digital transactions.
The Southern Surgical Association retains copyright to protected volumes of the transactions published prior to 1998. All volumes prior to that year have been digitized under the auspices of the SSA.
The Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies and other reproductions of copyright material. The digitized reproductions in this collection may be used for private study, scholarship or research. For inquiries regarding permission to publish or reproduce these images, please contact the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.