Announcing the Director of the Rudolph Matas Library: Neville Prendergast

I am pleased to announce that effective January 9, 2009, Neville Prendergast will be the Director of the Rudolph Matas Library of the Health Sciences at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Since 2001, Mr. Prendergast has been Associate Director for Health Information Resources at the Becker Medical Library at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Prior to that, he served in increasingly responsible library positions at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Iowa and in the Health Sciences Library and the School of Pharmacy Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He began his professional career as a chemist and science teacher in Jamaica. In 1974 he received his B.S. (Honors) in Biochemistry from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica where he also received his postgraduate degree in library science. In 1988 he earned his M.L.S. from SUNY Buffalo.

He has been a fellow in the Association of Research Libraries Leadership Medical Informatics, and Career Development Program and the National Library of Medicine (NLM)/Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA.
Since 2007 he has been a fellow in the NLM/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Leadership Institute.

Mr. Prendergast has a long and distinguished record of professional publications, awards, and grants in the field of health science librarianship.

He will be joined in New Orleans by his wife, Portia, children and three dogs.

Neville Prendergast will be a strong contributor and leader in the continued growth of Tulane’s School of Medicine, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Tulane National Primate Center.
My thanks to Dr. Kevin Krane of the School of Medicine and the search committee he chaired and to all those who participated in the search. I offer special thanks to Mildred Moore of the Matas Library who served so capably as interim director since January.

Lance D. Query,
Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Resources
Tulane University