The Health Sciences Library collection includes materials in medicine, public health, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, and reflects the history and practice of health disciplines. The History Collection contains primarily materials dated before 1900. All materials in the History Collection are cataloged and searchable on the online catalog (web address above). In 2005, the library has completed an extensive renovation; the History Collection now has compact, secure, climate control storage for the collection, a reading and reference area, and several public display cases. Materials are accessible Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., except for University holidays and by appointment.

The collection has strengths in public health, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry. Specific strengths include tuberculosis, materia medica, sanitary engineering, and thoracic surgery. Noteworthy are letters of Florence Nightingale, (full images available on the library's History Collection website), a hand-colored 1543 edition of Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica, four-volumes of Herbarium Blackwellianum, other botanic medical texts, and a collection of medical and dental tools, including battlefield surgical kits. Important donations include 1,200 volumes from Dr. Benson Wilcox, a noted Cardiovascular surgeon and rare medical book collector; the historical and ophthalmology collection of Dr. Herman Burian from the UNC Department of Ophthalmology; research papers and prepublication sketches of Frank Netter from his daughter Francine Netter Carlson; and materials on transfusion medicine and blood banking from Dr. Charles Wallas. The Gottschalk nephrology collection is housed at the UNC Wilson Library.