University Librarian Susan Gibbons announced the appointment of John Gallagher to Interim Director of the Medical Library:
I am pleased to announce that John Gallagher will serve as the interim director of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library upon the departure of Kenny Marone on May 1nd. The position of director of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library also reports to the Medical School, and John’s interim appointment carries the full support of Richard Belitsky, Deputy Dean for Education at the School of Medicine
John has been the Associate Director of the Medical Library since October 2011 and, since Kenny’s appointment as AUL for Research Support and Collection he has represented the Medical Library on numerous forums within both the School of Medicine and the Library. John joined Yale in November 1999 as a casual employee at the Library Shelving Facility and since then has held numerous leadership positions of increasing responsibility at the Medical Library. In April 2000 he became the Evening and Weekend Circulation Supervisor, and in July was appointed as the Head of Circulation. He pursued his MLS shortly thereafter, graduating from Southern Connecticut State University in January 2005. Other positions he has held include Access Services Librarian and Deputy Director for Public Services.
John has led strategic planning initiatives at the Medical Library, and co-chaired the inaugural University Library’s Joint Departmental Best Practices effort that strived to improve Labor/Management relations at Yale University. He has been involved in the management of a number of major construction projects at the Medical Library, including The Cushing Center, which is home to Harvey Cushing’s Brain Tumor Registry, and a complete renovation of the Medical Historical Library’s rare book stacks to upgrade environmental conditions to archival standards. Currently he is working with the YSM’s Office of Education to address space concerns associated with the redesign of the School of Medicine’s curriculum.
John is a recent graduate of the 2012/2013 NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program, a program focused on preparing emerging leaders for director positions in academic health sciences libraries. He has also served on both the Executive Committees of the North Atlantic Health Sciences Libraries and the Connecticut Association of Health Sciences Libraries. From its foundation in 2010 until 2012, John served on the Governance Committee of the Medical Heritage Library, a digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, that promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine. Finally, John has authored a number of articles related to operational management in medical libraries, and has been the Principal Investigator on grants related to the digitization of some of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Historical Library’s remarkable collections.
Please join me in thanking John for his willingness to serve as the interim director and his assistance in ensuring a smooth leadership transition for the Medical Library.
Best wishes,
susan