Editor’s Note

Transforming Biomedical informatics and Health Information Access: Don Lindberg and the U.S. National Library of Medicine is a newly published book from IOS Press [1]. It chronicles the extraordinary accomplishments of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., his NLM team, and the many external partnerships he encouraged. During 1984–2015, a consequential period in the library’s history, Lindberg and colleagues generated far-ranging effects both in and outside NLM. Dr. Lindberg died in 2019. It was my privilege to serve on his NLM team and co-edit this tribute volume. Selected portions of the book were co-published in 2021 as a special issue of Information Services and Use (ISU), Volume 41, number 3–4. Those eleven already published ISU papers present stories of ‘Don Lindberg’s Outreach Legacy’ and recount notable examples of his efforts to improve access to health information by everyone, including underserved and disadvantaged minority populations.

Randolph A. Miller M.D. edited the twelve papers that comprise the ‘Informatics’ section of the book along with an overview summary he wrote with Edward M. Shortliffe M.D., Ph.D. The papers are co-published here as the second special issue in ISU. The papers document the extraordinary transformations in biomedical informatics that Don Lindberg and his teams accomplished. We are given a before-and-after perspective of what changed, how it changed, and the impact of those changes. The people behind the transformations were not solely informaticians. Libraries and librarians were often in the forefront, enabling and promoting necessary institutional changes to take hold and flourish. For example, in the IAIMS initiatives, academic medical libraries took on new roles to facilitate the integration of both physical (via networking) and intellectual (via computer applications providing new functionality) resources across their institutions. Intensive short courses organized by NLM trained librarians, healthcare professionals, and administrators to become informatics change agents at their institutions. NLM’s support of extramural training programs and of R&D increased more than five-fold during this time. This provided a strong foundation for recent informatics achievements and for those yet to come.

A third and final special issue will be published in 2022 containing papers describing the multiple dimensions of expanded ‘access’ to health information. They recount how Dr. Lindberg moved NLM to provide free worldwide service to scientists, health professionals, and the public, and his impact on scholarly communication and new roles for librarians.

Elliot R. Siegel Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief

Information Services and Use