Administrators Christie Degener and Diana McDuffee to Retire From Health Sciences Library
Two senior administrators at the University Libraries, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will retire effective January 1, 2019. Christie Degener and Diana McDuffee are assistant directors at the Health Sciences Library. Their last day on the job will be December 21, 2018.
Christie Degener has been assistant director for information access and discovery since 2016. She first joined the Health Sciences Library as a serials cataloger in 1984 and developed deep expertise in serials, eventually heading HSL’s resources management services unit. She also served as interim head of HSL from August 2015 through June 2016.
Christie has been an active member of the North American Serials Interest Group since its founding. She chaired NASIG’s committee on liaison relations and the nominations and elections committee and served on numerous other of the group’s committees and task forces. She also was part of the planning committee for the North Carolina Serials Conference over many years, including co-chairing the group in 2004, 2006-2008 and 2012-2017.
She has contributed her expertise in cataloging, technical services and collections to numerous committees and task forces of the Health Sciences Library and the University Libraries, and to the Triangle Research Libraries Network.
Christie has been a frequent speaker about issues related to serials management and serials librarianship; has written about these topics for newsletters and journals; and has been a regular guest lecturer at Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science.
In 2006, she received the HSL’s Award of Excellence and in 2015 she was one of five librarians awarded a lifetime membership by NASIG for her consistent activity with the organization.
Diana McDuffee retires as assistant director for community engagement, AHEC and outreach services. Before coming to the Health Sciences Library in 1991 to coordinate AHEC’s library network, Diana was librarian and then director of the social science data library for the Institute for Research in Social Science, also at Carolina.
Diana has been the principal investigator for multiple grants to the Health Sciences Library related to AHEC, online resources and the provision of consumer health information for North Carolinians. She was instrumental in developing and managing the NC Health Info online portal (nchealthinfo.org), which the HSL launched in 2003. She has written frequently about these topics.
In addition to serving on numerous committees at the University Libraries, Diana was chair of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of the Medical Library Association in 2009-2010 and she chaired its research special committee. She has also chaired committees for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine’s Southeastern/Atlantic region and has served on the educational resource subcommittee for the UNC School of Medicine’s Liaison Committee on Medical Education.
From 1994 through 2005, Diana was an elected alderman for the town of Carrboro, North Carolina. In 2011, she received the Health Sciences Library’s award for distinguished services. In 2013, she received the MAC Award for Professional Excellence by a Health Sciences Librarian.
