What is your role in the committee?
I joined the New Professionals Sub-committee this past summer, coming to it from an academic librarianship perspective. The main thing I’m working on at the moment is Chatting Info Lit, the sub-committee’s podcast series for new professionals. I’ve been editing the first episode, as well as producing some additional audio and thinking about promotional material.
When did you join and why?
I started in September. Having spent a decade or so as an early career academic historian, teaching and conducting research at various institutions, I moved into librarianship because I wanted to play a broader role in supporting students. Information literacy was really one of the driving factors in that decision, because of the impact that information skills have on students’ wellbeing; on academic confidence, life beyond university, and the world in general! In my previous teaching roles, I had snuck in sessions dedicated to things like critical reading and identifying useful information, so this was something I’d been thinking about for a while! And my PG Dip in Librarianship at Sheffield then put those approaches in a different context, and cemented my interest in IL. So, coming from a more academic-faculty-ish professional background, I hope to bring those experiences and perspectives to the New Professionals Sub-committee. And more generally, I’m keen to pursue ideas for supporting and expanding IL provision in educational settings.
What is your day job?
I am part-way through my second year as a Learning Development Librarian at the University of Nottingham, with a focus on teaching information skills and information literacy. The library’s newly amalgamated Learning Development team has a remit of teaching Information, Digital and Academic Skills across the whole institution, so I am on the information side that, with a role in teaching and creating learning resources. Primarily, I focus on Arts, Humanities and Social Science subjects.
What are your other interests?
Though I’ve stepped away from academic research, I have retained an interest in history (and especially Elizabethan and Stuart England), and I still have some publications in the pipeline. In my free time, I am messing around with a bit of long-form fiction that combines Elizabethan theatre and religion with other weird and mythic influences. I’ve dabbled in music, as well, and my (limited) skill with a guitar can be heard on the Chatting Info Lit intro!