UAMS’ Ryan Voted President-Elect of Medical Library Association

By todd

LITTLE ROCK – Mary L. Ryan, director of the library at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been chosen president-elect of the national Medical Library Association (MLA).


 


The MLA is a nonprofit, educational organization representing more than 1,100 institutions and 3,600 individual members in the health sciences information field. Ryan will assume the office of president-elect and join the MLA Board of Directors during a May meeting of the MLA in Philadelphia. She will become president in 2008.


 


Ryan joined UAMS as library director in 1997. She previously served as executive director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, South Central Region, at the Texas Medical Center Library in Houston. Prior to that, she worked 12 years as assistant director of technical services at the UAMS Library.


 


Ryan also served on the MLA Board of Directors from1990-1993, when she was section council chair. A Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP), Ryan has been awarded several honors, including the 1978 MLA Murray Gottlieb Prize, the 1996 MLA South Central Chapter Distinguished Service Award, a 1998 National Library of Medicine Medical Informatics Fellowship and induction as an MLA Fellow in 2006.


 


Ryan earned a Master of Public Health degree from the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health in 2004 and received the COPH Public Health Student Leadership Award. In 2006, she received the UAMS Dale Bumpers Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Leadership Award. 


 


UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has about 2,430 students and 715 medical residents. It is one of the state’s largest public employers with about 9,400 employees, including nearly 1,000 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $5 billion a year. For more information, visit www.uams.edu.