MLA-Phil

After 28 years of dedicated service, Diane Wolf, Associate Director, Medical Libraries, Christiana Care Health System will retire on September 27, 2007.

Diane came to the Philadelphia area in 1976 to work with June Fulton at the Regional Medical Library, then based at the College of Physicians. In August 1979, Diane began her tenure at Christiana Care Medical Libraries. At that time, it was managed by Helen St. Clair and known as the Wilmington Medical Center. Diane worked as Medical Librarian and AV Specialist and was promoted to Associate Director in 1996. Until November 2006, Diane managed the Wilmington Hospital Library, moving to the Christiana Campus when the new Lewis B. Flinn Library opened in the John H. Ammon Medical Education Center.

During her tenure at Christiana Care, Diane advanced library services in such areas as evidence-based searching, reference, document delivery, and current awareness services. Her collaborative and leadership skills were evident in her ability to forge alliances with other hospital departments and she often worked outside traditional library activities. Diane was liaison to the Family Medicine and Pastoral Care Departments and developed a class for clinical pastoral care interns and residents in the spiritual care of Jewish patients. Along with her many formal and informal teaching responsibilities, Diane worked closely with Christiana’s HR Department to develop and teach classes in time management. Additionally, Diane served on a number of system-wide Christiana Care committees, most notably the Patient Safety and Career Development Committees.

Active throughout her career in the Philadelphia Regional Chapter of the Medical Library Association, Diane served as Program chair for the first state-wide meeting held in Hershey in 1979. Many long-time Chapter members may recall that Diane was quite pregnant during the Hershey meeting and attendees were relieved that a major medical center was just down the road! Diane was our Chapter Chair in 1994-1995, served on the HLS Board and chaired MLA National’s Medical Informationist Task Force.

Diane has made outstanding contributions to our profession — as author of numerous articles and presenter at many national conferences. A distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals for over a decade, she has won Chapter awards and also Customer Service awards at Christiana Care.

Diane’s retirement plans include a six-week trip to southern China and Tibet. The trip to Lhasa will be over land so Diane and husband Lew Bennett will be “off the grid” for a week, staying in country lodges and farm houses. The latter part of the trip will feature more luxurious travel on a Yangtse River cruise and visits to Shanghai and Beijing.

Diane plans to offer consulting services as principal consultant for Wolf Information Experts - WolfInformationExperts@comcast.net

Diane expects to be busy with family, as she is fortunate to have both of her parents alive and living independently in the New York area and looks forward to spending more time with them. And if this were not enough, Diane serves on the board of her synagogue as Chair for Religious Life.

Diane’s advice to those new to medical librarianship: ”move out of the library and onto the floors, to teach, to do rounds, to serve on hospital committees.”

And finally, Diane wishes to thank Christine Chastain-Warheit, Director of Libraries at Christiana Care, for her constant encouragement and support.