With the new fiscal year Becker Library has new faces in leadership positions.
Debbie Thomas, the Associate Director for Health Information Services and Collection Management, retired from her position after more than 10 years of service at the library. Debbie’s background as a hospital librarian and her commitment to service won her the respect of all those she helped. We wish her well in her new phase of life!
Angela Hardi, a member of the Health Information Services division, will be the new head of Health Information Services and will assume responsibility for our team of clinical librarians and information services staff. Angela has been a clinical librarian at Becker Library for thirteen years. During that time, she co-authored 50+ published systematic reviews, helped revise library presentations for the medical school curriculum, became a member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals, and assisted patrons with diverse information needs. As Head of Health Information Services, she’ll continue to support Becker Library’s outstanding systematic review and literature search services, and curriculum initiatives. She’ll also explore future advancements, including AI tools, to help library users find reliable information more efficiently.
Katie Funk, a new member of Becker Library, will take over as the Associate Director for Collection Management overseeing Becker Library’s collections, resource licensing, open access strategies, and resource discovery tools. Prior to coming to WashU, Katie was the program manager for PubMed Central at the National Library of Medicine. In that role, she provided strategic leadership, developed product policy, and coordinated NLM’s support for the public access policies of NIH and other federal agencies as well as the NIH Preprint Pilot. She also co-chaired the Subcommittee on Open Science’s Publications Working Group (2023-2024). In 2021, Katie was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in recognition of efforts to increase human- and machine-readable access to COVID-19 literature. She has a master’s degree in library and information science from The Catholic University of America. Katie’s incoming goals are:
- To position Becker Library as a leader in advancing open access and sustainable publishing models that remove barriers to accessing and disseminating research.
- To increase the collection’s reach by ensuring inclusive access and supporting innovative uses of the information.
I am very excited to have Angela and Katie in their new roles and am looking forward to the energy and new ideas they bring to make Becker Library even better!