WHSLA Spotlight - Michele Matucheski with Ascension Wisconsin Library Services in Oshkosh, WI

This month’s Spotlight focuses on our 2018 WHSLA President, Michele Matucheski, MLIS, AHIP. 

Michele Matucheski is currently a medical librarian for Ascension Wisconsin, based at Ascension Mercy Hospital in Oshkosh, WI.   She previously worked for Affinity Health System and Ministry Health Care before the most recent merger with Ascension.  Not quite a solo Librarian through those years, out of necessity, Michele has learned  to wear just about all hats in a hospital / health system  library environment from research, web mistress and information architecture,  contract negotiation, end user training, marketing library services, cataloging, and archives.    

Since 2009, she has been working with the Sisters who founded Mercy Hospital on an oral history project to record their memories and life work with The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother.  This has been a very purposeful and satisfying project that reminds me why I do what I do as a Librarian.  One of the interviews is available at The Stories of the Sisters.   This interview is with Sr. Frieda Mohnl, who survived WWII and Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass.  Sr. Frieda was a pioneer in social work and hospital case management. 

Before coming to work at Mercy, Michele’s first professional library job was for Middleton Health Sciences Library at UW-Madison as a Reference Librarian who also did User Education and Outreach.    While still in Library School, Michele worked as a Medical Library Technician at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison.  This was a perfect “lab” to compliment the theory and philosophical base of library school. 

Michele has been a WHSLA Member since 1997 when she attended her first WHSLA Conference.  Through the years, she has held various positions in WHSLA, including a previous term as WHSLA President in 2005, Chair of Professional Development, Fox Valley Area Representative, guest WHSLA Blogger, WISDOM Chat Presenter, Annual Meeting Planning Committees, and more. 

She currently holds positions with The Fox River Area Library Consortium (FRVALC) as web mistress, Continuing Education Chair, and Archivist.

In 2017, he presented a paper at MLA in Seattle, co-written with Kellee Selden on Library-Friendly Contract Language.    She is a distinguished member of The Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP). 

Michele grew up in the country of north central Wisconsin, outside of Antigo.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from UW-Madison in African Literature & Languages, later earning her MLIS degree from UW-SLIS in Madison. 

In her home life, she enjoys “making stuff” from quilting to photography to texture and surface design, hand-dying fabric, weaving, spinning, and fiber arts.  This creative life is tracked on her blog, Sweet Leaf Notebook. 

“What Medical Librarians do on Vacation.”    One of her favorite places to travel is Scotland.  Last summer, she visited The Surgeons Museum in Edinburgh, fascinated with the history of Medicine and the pathology specimens on display there.