John Shaw Billings Biography

John Shaw Billings (April 12, 1838 – March 11, 1913) was an American librarian, building designer, and surgeon. However, he is best known as the modernizer of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the Army and as the first director of the New York Public Library. In his early years, he was a surgeon and a statistician on medicine in the U.S. Army. Billings oversaw the building of the Surgeon General's Library, the nation's first comprehensive library for medicine. Because of his innovative approaches to improving public health and hospitals, Billings headed the U.S. Census Bureau’s division of Vital Statistics and oversaw statistical compilation of censuses. Along with Robert Fletcher, Billings started Index Medicus, a monthly guide to contemporary medicine that ran for 16 months until his retirement at the Medical Museum and Library. He also served as Johns Hopkins Hospital's medical advisor and authored reports regarding criteria for medical and nursing curricula as well as hospital design. In addition to his work at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he was a hygiene faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, the director at University Hospital, and the Chairman at the Carnegie Institution.