(Boston)—Kate Flewelling, director of the Alumni Medical Library at Boston University Medical Campus, has received the President’s Award from the Medical Library Association (MLA). The honor is given to MLA members or groups who have engaged in service to the mission and vision of the organization and improved the lives and/or careers of health sciences librarians. Flewelling currently serves as treasurer of the MLA’s board of directors. She was elected to the board in 2024.
Per the MLA President, “Over the past year, Flewelling’s transformation of the Treasurer role and her dedicated efforts in restructuring the endowments have significantly contributed to ensuring responsible stewardship of MLA’s funds.”
In 2021, the president of the Association of Academic Health Science Libraries (AAHSL) appointed Flewelling to the Program and Education Committee (PEC), which is responsible for planning the AAHSL annual meeting, including the education program and AAHSL/Group on Information Resources Matheson Lecture. In 2022, she was named PEC chair.
Flewelling received her BA, cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College and her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Before coming to BU, she was executive director at the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Mid-Atlantic Region, based at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to NNLM, she was a reference librarian and coordinator of instruction at Upstate Medical University, State University of New York - Syracuse where she coordinated library instruction to students, faculty, residents and staff in the colleges of medicine, nursing, health professions and graduate studies and the university health system.
Flewelling also was a National Library of Medicine associate fellow and worked at Inova Fairfax Hospital Health Sciences Library, Falls Church, Virginia, where she provided reference, instruction and training to health care professionals, medical students, patients and the public at this regional health center.
Flewelling is a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals and, in 2017, was named a distinguished alumna of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies. She has an extensive record of presentations, publications and professional activities.
The MLA is a global, nonprofit educational organization with a membership of more than 400 institutions and 3,000 professionals in the health information field. Since 1898, MLA has fostered excellence in the professional practice and leadership of health sciences library and information professionals to enhance health care, education and research throughout the world. MLA educates health information professionals, supports health information research, promotes access to the world’s health sciences information and works to ensure that the best health information is available to all.