John Gallagher, who has provided leadership to the Medical Library since 2014, retired on February 6, 2026, after over 25 years of dedicated service at Yale. John joined Yale in 1999 as a casual employee at the Library Shelving Facility. In 2000, he moved to the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (CWML) as the evening and weekend supervisor. After earning his master’s degree in library science in 2004, John was promoted to head of access and delivery services. He continued to advance at CWML, becoming deputy director of public services and later associate director. He was appointed interim director in 2014 and library director in 2016.
John’s service to the library, medical campus, and Yale community has been marked by innovation and transformation. His understanding of issues facing medical libraries, willingness to experiment, and ability to build successful networks have ensured the continued growth and success of CWML. Over his 10 years as library director, John has expanded CWML’s services and collections in novel ways, expertly positioning CWML to support over 23,000 users from Yale Schools of Medicine, Public Health, Nursing, and Yale New Haven Hospital. His accomplishments are numerous. Some highlights include establishing one of the nation’s most robust bioinformatics library support services, leading several large-scale library renovation projects to support the evolving needs of the community, advancing the alignment of library services across Yale New Haven Health System, and negotiating tirelessly with library vendors to ensure access to the resources needed for our research, education, and clinical endeavors.
Nationally, John is recognized as a leader in health sciences library management, and his expertise is regularly sought by medical library directors across the country. From 2020-2022 he led the Medical Library Association’s (MLA) InSight Initiative, a program that fostered high-level dialogue between health sciences librarians and scientific publishers to address challenges related to user access, disintermediation, and information needs in an evolving scholarly and scientific publishing landscape. He served as a mentor in the National Library of Medicine/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Leadership Fellows Program, which prepares emerging leaders for the position of director in academic health sciences libraries. Under John’s leadership, CWML was awarded the MLA Research Advancement in Health Sciences Librarianship Award in 2021.
John’s decades of service to CWML and Yale will benefit our community for years to come. He leaves CWML well-positioned for continued success, and we wish him the best in his well-earned retirement.
In the coming months, YSM and Yale University Library will engage in a national search to fill this position. In the meantime, Holly Grossetta Nardini, MLS, the associate director of CWML, will assume the role of interim director.