Elizabeth C. Whipple, MLS

Beth Whipple is the Interim Director of the Welch Medical Library. She is responsible for overseeing library and information services at Johns Hopkins University, including the Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing. In this interim role, she leads an expert team of managers, informationists, and IT/digital systems specialists serving the information needs of, and collaborating with, faculty, researchers, clinicians and students in clinical, basic science and translational research.

Ms. Whipple came to Johns Hopkins in 2024 after 17 years at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, IN, where she was the Assistant Director of Research & Translational Sciences and a tenured full librarian. In this role she led the Ruth Lilly Medical Library’s Research Team and oversaw research initiatives from the Library, including implementation of an electronic laboratory notebook for the School of Medicine, achieving 100% compliance with the Schools’s required data management plan, and supporting research impact and open access/scholarly communication initiatives.

At Johns Hopkins, she continues to support and enhance the informationists model of embedded librarians and grow services that directly support the ever evolving needs of Welch Library patrons. Her research on bibliometric analyses has focused on highlighting trends, such as gender trends over time and cross-institution collaboration, showing how publication trends change over time, leading to more translational research and more collaboration. She has also worked with international teams to develop clinical practice guidelines for pediatric critical care topics informed by an evidence synthesis and systematic review approach. She has special interests in research impact support and developing research services to meet current needs of researchers, as well as supporting scholarly publishing and dissemination of all Welch patrons.