 Its mission is to document, organize and preserve organizational records, personal papers, books and artifacts in all formats and disseminate information about them in both printed and electronic form.It also serves as an informational link to all other family medicine organizations and to all who are interested in the history of the specialty.The first move to begin an historical center within the specialty of family medicine came in 1987, when Claudene Clinton, then Director of the Division of Research and Information Services for the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), suggested the need for the establishment of a repository within the AAFP to house the growing body of material relating to the founding, growth and development of the academy and of the specialty of family medicine.