LAUSR

The most vivid impression I retain about Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. is the sheer breadth of his vision for the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and indeed for the medical community. Dr. Lindberg’s insights and contributions to medical informatics and related fields are well established, but equally remarkable was his philosophy of ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend’ (credited initially to Mao Zedong) when it came to NLM. Dr. Lindberg envisioned opportunities far beyond the confines of a traditional medical library and of medicine itself. He perceived NLM and its many and diverse arms as vehicles to ultimately enrich people’s lives in America and around the world. Much of Dr. Lindberg’s vision translated to projects across NLM, including several in the Communications Engineering Branch, part of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications’ Engineering Branch, an NLM research division. I began as an engineer in the branch in 1974 and had the privilege to lead it from 1984-2018. I outline some of these initiatives in this article, emphasizing Dr. Lindberg’s critical role.