It is a distinct pleasure to announce that Terrie Wheeler will be joining Weill Cornell as the new Director of the Samuel J. Wood Library and the C.V. Starr Biomedical Information Center effective June 2. In her new role, Terrie will lead an ongoing transformation of the library to a next generation facility supporting next generation science, care, and education.
Ms. Wheeler is currently is the Chief of the Education Services Branch at the National Institutes of Health Library. Previously, she was Director of the Gorgas Memorial Library in Silver Spring, MD, serving the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and the Naval Medical Research Center, with their associated overseas labs. Under her direction, this library was awarded the 2009 Federal Library of the Year Award. Prior to this she served as the Assistant Chief of the Information Services Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Most of her career was spent at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS), where she directed both the libraries and the medical media services, and was the healthcare system Webmaster.
Ms. Wheeler's research interest is integrating information into user workflows. In 2008, she led the use of bibliometric analytics to provide information on the impact of various scientific programs. These included research impact analyses of infectious disease science for efficacy and influence as well as publication strategies. This work was used to justify future funding and to report scientific progress via the Command's balanced scorecard. In 2007, she published research on integrating library licensed electronic content into the electronic medical record to assist clinicians with questions as they saw patients. Ms. Wheeler oversees the venerable NIH Library informationist program, which integrates information into user workflows through librarians with science subject expertise being embedded in clinical and research groups.
Active in the Medical Library Association (MLA) since the 1980s, Ms. Wheeler is currently the chair of the Research Section and jury chair for the MLA Thomson-Reuters/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award. She has served at various times as Federal Libraries section chair, Federal Libraries section webmaster, section representative to section council, Pittsburgh Chapter chair, chapter representative to Chapter Council, and Consumer and Patient Health Information section secretary.
She also has an interest in information technology and in communicating the value of libraries in language that administrators understand. From 2010 - 2011, Ms. Wheeler led a five federal agency study of the value of information provided by a librarian. This study yielded data regarding the contributions of the library to patient care, research, education and administration. Each agency and participating facility was given their data set to use when discussing their budget with their administrators. This information was so valuable that the VA and Army medical librarians are planning to repeat this study.
A graduate of Adrian College and the University of Michigan, Ms. Wheeler holds bachelor's degrees in biology and English, and a master's degree in library science with an emphasis in medical librarianship.