Good afternoon and welcome
on behalf of the National Library of Medicine
and the Friends of the National Library of Medicine,
at this time it's my pleasure to bring to the microphone
the Acting Director of the Library Betsy Humphreys.
[Applause]
Thank you, Don, and let me add my welcome to his.
It's great to see so many of you here, a terrific group
of the National Library of Medicine's staff,
no better group in the world in my opinion,
and many of our friends of the National Library of Medicine,
board members, well-wishers of Don and Mary, and this
is an exciting and interesting event for us.
As I think many of you know, it is a tradition
here at the National Library of Medicine
and its predecessors, that directors of the National
Library of Medicine be memorialized in portraits,
which are then hung in prominent positions
in the Library, and, of course, Don Lindberg is the
longest serving director of the National Library
of Medicine. I think people felt that probably
John Shaw Billings would retain that accolade for
a long time, but, no, he really left at the end of 30 years.
Don, of course, longer than that.
So obviously we need to have a picture of
Don to hang in the Library, but in this case we are
doubly blessed because we have a picture not only
of Don but a picture of Don and Mary Lindberg.
Many of you – I remember the day we welcomed them,
both of them, and also their son John
I think was with them as well
– when Don was sworn in in the auditorium in there,
and we all met them, and we thought Don
was going to be great, and people were reserving
their opinions about whether he was going to be
good and easy to work with, but everyone
immediately knew that they loved Mary. [Laughter]
So there was no hesitation, everyone loved Mary.
So we have been very blessed to have such
an outstanding leader. We have on past
occasions tried to enumerate what happened
on his watch and the wonderful things that
he made happen while he was here at NLM,
and I'm not going to do that again today,
but suffice it to say that we are a totally different
institution than we were when he arrived.
We have a much broader scope and effect.
We were terrific when he arrived, and we have
obviously a great deal more to be proud of
in terms of fulfilling the basic mission which
is to get information out to the world and
benefit the progress of medicine and the
public health. So he has been an outstanding civil servant
and somebody who has really made a huge difference
in access to information around the world.
So, naturally, we want to have a great picture
of him in the National Library of Medicine
and also because he's a totally visual person,
and he thinks in pictures, and he loves pictures,
whether still or moving, and so it is even better
that we are going to have a great picture of Don and Mary
to stay with the National Library of Medicine into the future.
And the reason we have this to do is
in large part due to the wonderful support and activities
of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine,
and Glen Campbell, the chairman,
is going to say a few words now.
[Applause]
Yes, it is great to see so many people here,
and I also would like to add my welcome
and my thanks to all of you.
It is quite, quite, quite a length of time that
it took to get here today in terms of the portrait being
ready for its unveiling, and we are thrilled.
It is my honor and my privilege as the chair
to express appreciation and gratitude
to those who made all of this come together today.
First, I must note that every single person to whom
I went for help with regard to this portrait answered
immediately and with the greatest enthusiasm,
which I really do think speaks to just the high regard
in which Dr. Lindberg and Mrs. Lindberg
– Don and Mary to so many of you –
are held at the Library but also in the communities in which
I work. It has been a pleasure to have everybody participate,
and I also want to name a few of them,
and I know today is Ash Wednesday,
so a sin of omission might be mine today
by not listing everybody, but I'm going to just thank
the portrait committee first for an incredible job,
and particularly Barbara Redman who is here
and Ken Walker and Dennis Cryer,
and Betsy Humphreys at the Library who has been so
tremendously helpful to us, and Pat Carson who
has been so helpful to us, and Ronica Lu of
the Friends who has been helpful to us,
and the selection and the commissioning of
the portrait was done with a tremendous amount of
attention and care as well, and we were so grateful
to settle—not settle but select very carefully
Bradley Stevens, the artist who has done this incredible
portrait of these two wonderful people.
And I wonder if Brad, you could just stand up so that
people could see you and acknowledge you.
[Applause]
Brad's very collaborative process with the Friends,
with getting to know us and getting to know what
we cared about in how it is that the Lindbergs
were portrayed, was critical to the success of
this magnificent portrait,
and we are grateful for that.
I encourage any of you who are here at the
reception afterwards to talk with him about the process
if you're not too overwhelmed, because
I think that it really speaks so well to it.
So this process and how the portrait came to be
are also going to be outlined in a wonderful video
that Anne Altemus and John Harrington put together
and that – in just a minute.
But before we go there, I would like to acknowledge
the donors, so many donors who contributed
so generously, magnificently and generously
to the portrait fund that we had set up
and also to the framing fund.
You'll see this is a beautifully selected, elegantly simple
frame to have around this beautiful portrait.
So I'm going to thank the donors
as many of them are here today.
I don't want to single them out
because they asked me not to,
but we are very grateful for very, very generous
contributions from some of the people here,
and we are very grateful to the whole Board
of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine.
I'm going to come back up at the end of this
to say a few more words, but right now
I am going to step aside so you can see
the wonderful video that talks about
how this portrait came to be.
[Applause]
[Music playing]
Portrait painting should transcend photography
and there's a timeless quality about a painting
as opposed to a photographic image of somebody,
which is an infinitesimal snapshot in time.
Whereas a painting, you spend a lot of time with
somebody, you get a better feel for their whole personage.
[Music playing]
The challenge of portraiture is how do you capture
somebody in one image. So when you're with
somebody, you're studying them,
but trying to not make them feel self-conscious,
and you're looking at their gestures,
the way they carry themselves, their mannerisms,
and you try to put that down on canvas.
I try to be very bold with my brush strokes
and application of paint. Even though you're making
a realistic representation of somebody, it should have
texture and build up of paint and hard and soft edges,
and it's that lusciousness of paint.
I do a lot of different things,
but I always come back to portraiture,
because I think it's in many ways the pinnacle
of all the subject matters I do.
NLM has an enormous picture collection,
and it does include some formal portraits, but the only ones
that are displayed are people who had really
important roles in the history of the Library.
It's absolutely fitting that we would have a portrait
of Don Lindberg as one of the major figures
in the development of NLM and his services.
We're excited about the fact that this portrait
is different from the others in the inclusion
in the portrait of Mary Lindberg.
[Bradley Stevens:] When I first met Dr. Lindberg and Mary,
I liked them immediately, felt comfortable with them.
And that always makes it nice for a portrait commission
because you can imagine that's not always the case.
Mary was very at ease and just kind of assumed a great pose,
and I said, wow, that's wonderful.
And then I was fussing with Dr. Lindberg a little bit
and it was okay, but I knew it wasn't perfect,
and so I was packing up, and I happened to glance up
and he was in this pose that I knew right away that was it.
And I said freeze, and I got all of my equipment
back out and captured him at that moment.
The Friends of the National Library of Medicine
are pleased to present this portrait
as a tribute to Dr. and Mrs. Lindberg.
When people come to the Library,
they'll be able to see this portrait, which truly represents
the unique partnership that Dr. and Mary Lindberg
-- Don and Mary as they're known to many --
had as they transformed the Library over the past 30 years.
[Music playing]
[Applause]
Okay, so now a big moment, a bigger moment.
Don, John – there they are for an unveiling.
[Applause]
I think it truly, truly captures
the wonderful couple that we all know
and love here at the Library.
I would like to ask them to
come up and say a few words.
[Don Lindberg:] Come on. Let's see if we got a good likeness.
[Applause]
Well, I hardly need to say that this is a wonderful event
for Mary and me. We're particularly grateful
to see old friends from the boards
and the previous boards
and college and even kindergarten – [Laughter]
[Mary Lindberg:] That's right. [Don Lindberg:] – here.
And a host of wonderful people
connected with NLM and our work.
Every single day here was for me a wonderful event.
I don't regret any one of them,
and I rejected all advice to be disdainful of federals
and federal service, because I knew better.
I knew that the best and smartest people in medical
computing were right here, and the speaker last night
more or less confirmed that in her view
from the departmental level.
So if I were to go around and thank each of you who would
– probably couldn't stand for it –
and I couldn't stand up, but I do have to thank Mary
[Applause and laughter]
for all of her help and winning ways.
But actually jobs are really a job of a couple.
With or without that support, you just are suddenly
worried about, golly, it's getting you know towards
suppertime, I've got to call and make excuses or
something or here's this wonderful person
I'm going to bring home with very little announcement.
[Laughter] And Mary always greeted those wonderful people
with wonderful hospitality and good cooking.
You know I had a bargain. So did I get anything wrong?
[Mary Lindberg:] Not so far. [Laughter]
[Don Lindberg:] Well, the day is young.
So again I think particular thanks to Glen Campbell
and the Friends of NLM and other donors
of this good cause. I guess we're timely
in that the papers, at least the ones I read,
are full of people being angry
that the Congress bought some portraits.
They didn't buy this one, however,
so we're escaping in good fettle and with a good
reputation left for me and for the institution.
Just in pausing, I do want to say,
though, that the creation of the Friends of NLM
has been a godsend. I mean at the time I came,
we couldn't buy you know a cup of coffee
for the distinguished visitors who constantly
come to NLM. So that's a bad thing.
So the Friends have been a wonderful
help in many, many ways.
But mixing us, the feds, researchers, and the
university, company people has been a pleasure.
I mean it doesn't seem like it was a
miraculous discovery. It's rather obvious and fun,
and as I say, I've liked every day of it.
On the other hand, federal agencies are
surprisingly fragile. I mean it is possible to
– and they did – walk away from the
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
just down the street
the finest path organization in the world
bar none, head and shoulders above anything else.
They got involved in base closure, which you know
remote possibility I suppose for NIH, but we're a base.
Anyway, it's possible to damage fine institutions
in government, quickly, so let's all
guard against that, and my only threat is if you're not good
to NLM, I'm going to come back and haunt you. [Laughter]
[Don Lindberg:] Okay? [Mary Lindberg:] Okay.
[Applause]
[Mary Lindberg:] A very few words. [Don Lindberg:] Yes.
They said few words, and I am in favor of that.
Years ago, the wives used to hand out
materials at the meetings,
and I remember we were at a meeting
– and now they have wonderful
trained people to do this but –
we were in a meeting in San Francisco,
and I was sitting up at the table with the folders,
and I noticed a gentleman standing at
the elevators back against the wall,
and all of a sudden,
he came striding across the lobby,
and he held out his hand to me, and he said,
"I am Dr. Martin Cummings.
I am the director of the National Library of Medicine,
and I understand you're the reason
Don Lindberg won't come to Washington."
[Laughter]
And it only took me a minute to say,
'Dr. Cummings, if Don Lindberg decides to
go to Washington, he'll go to Washington.'
[Laughter] And I'm so happy he did.
You have become our family,
and we'll be glad to always be in
the Reading Room to remind you that
this is a wonderful, wonderful place,
and we've enjoyed every moment of being here.
Thank you.
[Don Lindberg:] I know, good work.
[Applause]
Just a few words more, and I am so glad that
Dr. Lindberg decided to come to Washington as well,
and that you were with him.
This is really a unique partnership
as this portrait so adequately depicts,
and Betsy referenced earlier that we have talked
a good deal this past year about
the contributions that Dr. Lindberg has made
to the transformation of the Library.
This library is accessed globally by clinicians,
by clinical researchers, basic researchers,
all in very different fashion and with much better ease
and with much better results because of
the efforts of Dr. Lindberg and the team of
people that he has lead and worked here
over the past 30 years. It has been a
tremendous transformation, one that has
improved health care outcomes and improved
patient care, so when people come to the Library
– and people still do come to libraries.
We were talking about this last night.
People come to libraries for a number of reasons,
and they will continue to come here,
and when they come here, this portrait will
inspire as this couple has inspired us,
this beautiful, intelligent, caring, loving couple
that I – my niece has this word that she calls
"framily," which is a combination of friends and family.
They have created a culture here that is a family.
This is a government institution, but this is
a family at the National Library of Medicine
because of Don and Mary Lindberg
and the contributions they've made here.
What an honor and a privilege to have
this portrait now up on the wall there
so that all can see your unique partnership
and feel the effects of what it's done.
So on behalf of the Friends and everybody
here today, thank you again very much
for all of your good contributions, your service,
and your good cheer while you did it.
It's been a pleasure to work with you.
[Applause]