Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- American Pain Society records
- Dates:
- 1977-1991
- Creators:
- American Pain Society
- Extent:
- 5 Linear Feet (5 cubic-foot cartons)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], American Pain Society records (Collection 123). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The American Pain Society Records represent a period of growth for the Society. Although foundational documents are minimal, the collection features correspondence and records of the activities that built the organization, during the 1980s, into what it is today. These documents include financial papers, committee formations, the records of important general and board meetings, membership building practices, and publication records, including the membership's decision to publish a journal.
The American Pain Society Records were processed in 1998 by David C. Gartrell. The collection is organized into five major series. Brief descriptions of each follow.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The American Pain Society (APS) was formed by American clinicians, researchers, and teachers in the field of pain in response to a growing interest in and need for a national pain organization that would also serve as a chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain. The society was to foster research and education in the multidisciplinary field of pain in the United States.
Organizational work began in 1977, when John J. Bonica, on February 18, sent a letter to twenty-six other key American colleagues asking them to attend a meeting in Chicago just sixteen days later as members of "the Advisory Committee for the founding of the American Pain Society." Despite the short notice, all but six of the invitees attended the meeting. (Bonica missed it as well due to complications from hip surgery.) All motions were unanimously approved: the decision to found a national society compatible with the IASP; the provision for regional, state, or other subgroups; that B. Berthold Wolff-who was co-chairing the meeting along with B. Raymond Fink--should chair a Steering Committee; and that there would be a Membership Committee.
Membership in the Society was initially solicited by Wolff in a letter dated June 28, 1977 and sent to all American members of the IASP and its Eastern and Western Regional Chapters. Ultimately, there were 510 charter members of the Society by the time it was officially inaugurated in December, 1978. The APS had its first Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego on September 9-10, 1979.
In 1989, 63% of APS members responding to a survey voted that the APS should have its own journal. APS Journal debuted with the Spring 1992 issue and has been published as Pain Forum since 1995.
In the past twenty years, membership has grown to include over 3000 pain professionals.
- Acquisition information:
- The American Pain Society Records were given to the John C. Liebeskind History of Pain Collection by the American Pain Society in October, 1995.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by David C. Gartrell.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2022-10-13 11:19:35 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Information on permission to reproduce, quote, or publish is available from the History and Special Collections Division.
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], American Pain Society records (Collection 123). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library12-077 Center for Health Sciences, Box 951798Los Angeles, CA 90095-1798, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-6940