The Carl W. Gottschalk Collection on the Human Kidney is part of the Rare Book Collection of the University Library, and is available for use in its Reading Room. Rare Book Collection holdings do not circulate, but materials are available to any researcher with valid picture identification. Digital reproduction or limited photocopying is available, depending on the condition of the material. Materials are not available directly through interlibrary loan, but copies may be obtained through interlibrary loan subject to the above limitations. The Rare Book Collection is open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays (except holidays). Reference service is available during those hours in the Rare Book Collection Reading Room, by phone, and by email. Bibliographic access to the monographs, serials, and some pamphlets is through the online catalog of the University. Carl W. Gottschalk was a world-renowned renal physiologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His collection is one of the most comprehensive ever formed on the anatomy and physiology of the kidney. It includes many landmark volumes in the history of medicine, including Bartolomeo Eustachius's Opuscula Anatomica of 1564, containing the first treatise devoted to the kidney, and an English edition of Albinus's Tables of the Skeleton and Muscles of the Human Body, published in 1749.

The Gottschalk Collection consists of 743 monographic titles as follows: 16^th century: 3; 17^th century: 20; 18^th century: 52; 19^th century: 343; 20^th century: 325. There is also a collection of 1,000 pamphlet titles, chiefly 20^th century. There are 11 journal titles and 4 prints and photos. The collection also includes 10 medallions, representing awards presented to Dr. Gottschalk, and the furnishings of his study. The Rare Book Collection holds 690 additional titles from Dr. Gottschalk's working library that are as yet uncataloged.