The UCSF Library is pleased to announce a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to launch the Opioid Industry Documents Archive, a digital repository of publicly disclosed documents from recent judgments, settlements, and ongoing lawsuits concerning the opioid crisis.
The Opioid Industry Documents Archive builds on 20 years of UCSF’s expertise creating and managing the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents collections in its Industry Documents Library (IDL). The Opioid Industry Documents Archive is freely available to the public and is cross-searchable with IDL’s other collections of industry documents (including tobacco, drug, chemical, food, and fossil fuel).
Working together
This collaborative undertaking brings UCSF together with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University with expertise in library science, information technology, and digital archiving. It also relies on scholarship at both universities focused on many dimensions of the opioid epidemic, ranging from the history of medicine to pharmaceutical policy to clinical care.
Key areas represented at UCSF include:
- UCSF Industry Documents Library
- Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
- Department of Family and Community Medicine
From Johns Hopkins University, the project involves:
- Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
- Johns Hopkins Welch Medical Library
- Institute of the History of Medicine
- Sheridan Libraries’ Digital Research and Curation Center
The Opioid Industry Documents Archive
The Opioid Industry Documents Archive will provide free public access to anyone who is interested in investigating the activities that have led to the devastating epidemic, which has now contributed to the deaths of nearly 500,000 people. The launch coincides with the universities’ efforts to house more than 250,000 documents produced by opioid manufacturer Insys in the course of its bankruptcy proceedings following opioid litigation.
The archive currently contains 3,300 documents (more than 131,000 pages) in six collections:
- Insys Litigation Documents
- Kentucky Opioid Litigation Documents
- KHN OxyContin Collection
- National Prescription Opiate Litigation Documents
- Oklahoma Opioid Litigation Documents
- Washington Post Opioid Collection
A variety of online research tools are available for navigating the collections, including full-text searching, a detailed bibliography, and access to the API for building and analyzing large data sets. The Industry Documents Library is committed to preserving and providing long-term public access to documents for the benefit of scientists, community advocates, journalists, policymakers, attorneys, and others engaged in improving and protecting the public’s health.
Those with an interest in contributing to the project are encouraged to contact Industry Documents Library staff.