Preserving the Past, Inspiring the Future
History and innovation come together at the The Coit Museum in the University of Arizona's R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. While its collections preserve centuries of pharmacy and health sciences, the museum is also embracing modern technology to make those stories more interactive, engaging and accessible for today's visitors.
Founded in 1966 as an asset of the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy and the University of Arizona, the museum exists to connect people with the history of pharmacy and health sciences. Its mission centers on collecting, preserving and interpreting those histories so they can inform and inspire future generations. Every artifact, photograph and document contributes to a larger story about the evolution of medicine, education and patient care.
Behind the scenes, technology plays a growing role in how those stories are managed. The museum recently transitioned from PastPerfect to CatalogIt, a cloud-based collections management system that has transformed the way staff document and organize nearly every object in the collection.
"CatalogIt is much more user-friendly," said Heather Ingram, director of the Coit Museum. "We can access it from any device, even our phones."
The benefits extend well beyond convenience. As more collections are cataloged, the software will help the museum better understand its long-term storage needs, improve how artifacts are organized for preservation and ensure the stories connected to each object are recorded for years to come.
Visitors experience that blend of history and technology the moment they step into the museum's interpretive gallery, which opened in 2021. Interactive exhibits invite guests to explore pharmacy's evolution through multiple digital experiences. A timeline traces major milestones from the 1500s to the present, while The Great Moments in Pharmacy brings 40 historic paintings to life through animation and narrated stories. The exhibit earned a Telly Award, placing second in the interactive displays category.
Technology also helps the museum tell stories that would otherwise remain hidden. The Big Bottle experience enlarges historic pharmacy bottles onto a six-foot screen, allowing visitors to examine details impossible to appreciate in a display case. Another exhibit features sample calls from the Arizona Poison Control Center, demonstrating how pharmacy and medication safety continue to play a vital role today. Together, these interactive experiences help visitors connect the museum's historical collections with modern healthcare.
Preserving history also means protecting older forms of media before they are lost. The museum cares for a collection of VHS tapes and film recordings, and previous digitization work has already begun converting some of those materials into digital formats. Ingram hopes those efforts will continue as future projects move forward.
Digitization is also opening access to one of the museum's most distinctive collections. Nearly 900 artifacts from Upjohn Pharmacy, a turn-of-the-century pharmacy that originally operated on Disneyland's Main Street from 1955 to 1970, are being cataloged by graduate student volunteer Isabel. Once entered into CatalogIt, the collection will be available online, giving researchers, alumni and pharmacy enthusiasts the opportunity to explore pieces that are unable to be displayed for public viewing
Technology continues to shape the museum's future as well. Additional digitization initiatives and new technology projects remain on the horizon, each supporting the museum's mission to preserve the past while making it easier for new audiences to discover it. Through those efforts, the Coit Museum is ensuring that the history of pharmacy doesn't remain tucked away in storage. It continues to educate, engage and inspire.