Michele Gaca retired on the 13 August 2021 after more than 30 years in a variety of senior roles as an Information / Knowledge Manager. Throughout her career, Michele has contributed to a range of library organisations and services; including affiliated industry services from subscription agents, copyright administration, publishers and software / database suppliers.
Michele’s contribution to health librarianship has been extensive. Her most recent position was as Chief Librarian at Austin Health & Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg, Victoria. Since her commencement in 2014, the Austin Health Sciences Library has undergone a significant transformation, emerging as a strong, cohesive team who continue to work together to further Austin Health’s reputation as a centre of excellence for evidence-based practice.
In 2015, Michele spearheaded the development of multiple research courses at Austin Health. This started with Fundamentals of Research and over the years added Advanced Research Methods, How to Write a Research Paper and a research fundamentals course tailored for medical students.
Under Michele’s leadership, the Library received the Austin Health’s 2016 "Spirit of ANZAC" award, which recognises strong teamwork, persistence, ingenuity and success in the face of adversity. The Austin Health Sciences Library were the first non-clinical area to win this award, which was a great honour for our team.
In 2017, as part of the Austin Health Choosing Wisely committee, Michele led the Ask an Informationist – engaging with the evidence initiative. The Choosing Wisely Australia campaign encourages clinicians to have important conversations about potentially unnecessary hospital tests, treatments and procedures. The Library team created a series of evidence reports with infographic summaries based on suggested clinical questions to help clinicians “choose wisely”. Choosing Wisely Australia embraced the Library’s approach which led to invitations to attend several National events.
Michele ably steered the Austin Health Sciences Library team through all the unexpected hurdles of the pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021, ensuring we could provide an uninterrupted Library service. In March 2020, Michele also helped to curate and bring together our Austin COVID-19 Research page.
Michele played an important role as a member of the state-based portal Clinicians Health Channel (CHC) Reference Group in Victoria. Allison Hart, MedicalDirector, has kindly provided the below words in recognition for her contribution to the CHC:
“Michele’s commitment in driving new requirements for usage analysis, visual data analytics and unbiased review of clinical content resource choices, has ensured that the Clinicians Health Channel continues to deliver gold standard, evidence based, decision supporting clinical information at the point of care, which in turn supports clinician’s and patients every day in Victoria.” ~Allison Hart, Manager, Clinical Content, MedicalDirector
Michele has been involved with a number of professional memberships (joining ALIA as an Associate in July 1987), committees and groups over the years. Between 2013 – 2017, Michele was the President of Health Libraries Inc. (HLI). During her presidency, Michele led the Committee, improved financial compliance for HLI, presented at and helped organise the annual HLI conferences and arranged timely and relevant professional developmental activities to equip today’s health librarians with the latest knowledge and skills.
Michele was part of the HeLiNS project team that won the ALIA Research Award in 2016. In 2020, Michele coordinated a national team of health librarians to redevelop the “live’’ literature searches that originated as part of the HeLiNS project. The searches, which Michele convinced the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) to link on their website, are used by hospital staff and Standard Clinical leads to keep abreast of current evidence to support best practice and quality initiatives in line with the current NSQHS Standards 2nd edition. She has also presented internationally about this project and other initiatives at conferences in Ireland and Bali. Michele is deeply committed to sharing her knowledge and furthering the profession beyond the confines of the physical library, demonstrating that hospital libraries and librarians are integral to a hospital's quality and safety agenda.
Our Austin Health Sciences library team would like to thank Michele for all her positive energy and her commitment in developing us as library professionals. She has always encouraged us to take on new challenges, to step outside of our comfort zones and has always been open to listening and implementing our ideas.
Congratulations on your retirement Michele and we wish you all the very best for your next chapter in life!