News in the Health Science Information Field

Mention the name, Dr. Donald Lindberg, to someone in the health sciences library field, and there is likely immediate recognition. In our field, he’s been instrumental in shaping our world of health science database resources, information technology and biomedical informatics. In the hospital world and clinical environment he’s envisioned innovative approaches to electronic health records and computer-aided medical diagnosis.

Dr. Lindberg has been the head of the world’s largest biomedical library, the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland since 1984. During that time he affected or informed programs that today any database searcher in the world takes for granted. PubMed, MedlinePlus, the Unified Medical Language System and the creation of the National Center for Biotechnology (NCBI) were a groundbreaking result of Dr. Lindberg’s direction. Did we mention the Human Genome Project and the Visible Human Project? Oh, and ClinicalTrials.gov? All created or supported by a man whose reason for being seemed to be to put biomedical, medical and health sciences information in the hands of librarians, practitioners, clinicians, researchers, and perhaps, most telling, the public.

Countless tributes will likely be forthcoming as his retirement looms in March of 2015. We wanted to be among the first to wish him a healthy, vibrant retirement. The influence of Dr. Lindberg will continue on in our profession for a long time to come. Thank you for all you oversaw in our profession, Don.

The retirement announcement.

A recent award.

A bit of background.

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Photo of Donald Lindberg, M.D. in front of artwork inspired by NLM’s Visible Human Project, National Library of Medicine