A New Era of Bioethics At Georgetown: Resources for the Kennedy Institute of Ethics 50th Anniversary Symposium

The Bioethics Research Library Archives is home to an extensive collection of material that documents the history of bioethics from its founding as a field to the present day. Our goal is to preserve and make accessible these records to further scholarship of both the history of the field and contemporary bioethical issues. 

For more information about our resources please contact Bioethics Archivist and Reference Librarian John Zarrillo at bioethics@georgetown.edu

• Guides to our collections (also known as finding aids) are available online. Researchers can use these guides to identify materials that they would like to investigate.

• Our collections include:

  • Records of many major U.S. bioethics commissions dating from 1974 through the Obama administration.

  • Records of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics from its founding through the present day, including audio recordings of many Intensive Bioethics Courses and other lectures.

  • Records related to the Human Genome Project.

  • The papers of individuals associated with the KIE, including Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino (currently being processed and cataloged).

  • Oral histories that document the foundations of bioethics. Includes many KIE scholars and associates such as Robert Veatch, LeRoy Walters, Ruth Faden, Patricia King, and others.

• Researchers can access materials by appointment at Lauinger Library.

• We are able to provide scans of a limited amount of materials for research purposes.

Many digitized and born-digital resources are available via DigitalGeorgetown. These include:

• Bioethical Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Digital Collection

• Big Ideas in Bioethics Podcast

• Ethics and Intellectual Disability Newsletter Collection

• NGO Documents in Bioethics Digital Collection

• Bioethical Issues: Scope Notes Archive

• Bioethics Syllabus Exchange Repository

• The Robert Cook-Deegan Human Genome Archive

• Reports of the Institute on Human Values in Medicine

• Office of Technology Assessment Reports Collection

The following resources provide information on the history of the KIE and the Bioethics Research Library.

• Kennedy Institute of Ethics History, 1971-2000

• History of the Bioethics Research Library

• Acadia Institute Bioethics Interview Collection

• The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Newsletters

• KIE Founding Press Release, 1971