Himmelfarb Library congratulates Laura Abate who was promoted to Library Director on July 1, 2022. Laura had been serving as interim Library Director since Anne Linton retired in January.
Laura first joined Himmelfarb Library’s staff in 1999 as a reference librarian. She developed materials supporting medical informatics instruction for medical students and created a database and web interface for managing access to the library’s growing number of electronic resources. In 2003 Laura became Electronic Resources and Instructional Librarian and served in this role for 16 years. She managed the library’s electronic resources during the time that Himmelfarb made the transition to mostly electronic collections. She also played a key role in developing the curriculum for informatics for first and second year medical students in problem based learning. At the same time she expanded her role as a clinical librarian, frequently attending rounds for internal medicine residents and providing real time clinical information support for them. She was awarded Non-Medicine Attending of the Year by the Department of Medicine Housestaff for 2018-19.
In 2019 Laura was promoted to Head of Library Operations and the position was expanded to Associate Director of Library Operations in 2020. Laura oversaw all aspects of the Library’s web services and collections management, including budgeting and contract negotiations. She maintained her teaching role serving as an Adjunct Associate Professor for the Department of Medicine and Co-Director of the Informatics in the Health Sciences and Introduction to Systematic Review courses.
Let’s hear from Laura about her promotion and plans to lead Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library.
What inspired you to apply for the position and what are you most enjoying in your role as Library Director?
During my time at Himmelfarb Library, I’ve had several positions, worked my way through a lot of different duties, and seen major changes in our collections, services, and access. I don’t identify myself as someone who loves change, but I do like to solve problems, love to identify ways to improve our services and collections, and want to keep growing, learning, and honing my personal knowledge and skills. In short, being library director seemed like a big challenge and one that I was ready to take on. In terms of what I’m enjoying the most in this role, I love working with Himmelfarb’s staff and their creativity in continuously identifying ways to improve the library and to reflect the needs of the GW health sciences community.
What are your top priorities for the coming year?
Himmelfarb Library has seen major changes over the past two years and as I think about what comes next, I think about both renewal and assessment. I’m anxious to renew the library as a place for the GW health sciences community to meet, work, study, and socialize (not too loudly?). I am excited to continue to rebuild and hone our collections, and want to explore new ways that we can support teaching and learning, research and scholarly publishing, and clinical care. But, I also want to assess and continue to evolve - i.e. do we want to keep doing things as we do now or did prior to the pandemic, or are there alternative approaches that we should consider and explore. We take feedback from our user community seriously so please share your thoughts. I’m available in Himmelfarb 101 and can also be reached at leabate@gwu.edu or 202-994-8570.
