The National Librarians of Medicine and Their Predecessors

Book excerpt: Did you know that Walter Reed was once a librarian at the National Library of Medicine? This book looks at the twenty-seven men and women who headed the National Library of Medicine. In its early years, the library was known as the Library of the Surgeon General s Office, and from 1836 to 1865 the Army Surgeon General acted in dual capacity as surgeon and librarian. The first person to hold this dual position (albeit informally) was Joseph Lovell, who began the library by purchasing copies of medical books for his own use. After Lovell died in 1836, his interim successor, Benjamin King, started the process of turning Lovell's collection into a formal library, which grew to become the National Library of Medicine we know today. As the decades passed, the name and functions of the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office were transformed. In 1865, the roles of surgeon general and librarian were separated when Army Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes hired John Shaw Billings to run the library. Many decades later, in 1922, the Library of the Surgeon General s Office was renamed the Army Medical Library. Eventually, in 1956, the library was transformed into the institution known today as the National Library of Medicine.