UAMS’ Ryan Named to National Library of Medicine Board
| LITTLE ROCK – Mary L. Ryan, director of the library at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been appointed to serve a four-year term on the National Library of Medicine Board of Regents by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
Ryan is one of only two health sciences librarians serving on the board that includes leaders in the fields of medicine, dentistry, public health, hospital administration, pharmacology and bioinformatics. The board meets three times a year to advise, consult with and make recommendations on matters related to the library to the secretary of Health and Human Services, the director of the National Institutes of Health, and the director of the National Library of Medicine.
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 served as president of the national Medical Library Association from 2008-2009, also serving on the organization’s board of directors from 1990-1993.
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 colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Related Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a 540,000-square-foot hospital; a statewide network of regional centers; and six institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 2,836 students and 761 medical residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including nearly 1,150 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. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.