Last updated: 12th November 2025

Our Committee is formed of dedicated and passionate Information Literacy professionals across a wide variety of sectors. You can find out more about each member, their area of work, and their interests here.

Chairs:

Anne-Lise Harding: Co-Chair

Anne-Lise is a chartered librarian and currently holds the position of Senior Liaison Librarian at the House of Commons.

With previous experience in library management in the education sector, Anne-Lise has diverse experience in systems, collection management, customer service and many more but is passionate above all about information literacy. As part of her role in the committee, Anne-Lise attends meetings of the Government Information Group to ensure a consistent liaison between both groups.

When she is not busy training or working with others to better services, Anne-Lise loves to play video games, DIY and travelling. There is nothing Anne-Lise enjoys more than plotting with fellow librarians over a cup of good coffee!

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Laura Woods: Co-Chair

Laura is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the information experiences of female engineering undergraduates. Prior to starting her PhD, Laura has worked in libraries since 2007, graduating with an MSc in Library and Information Science from City University London in 2009. She has worked in a variety of roles in the legal and charity sectors, before moving to a role in Higher Education in 2014.

Laura joined the Information Literacy Group as Membership Secretary in 2014, became Secretary in 2015, and Deputy Chair in 2020. She took up the role as joint Chair in 2024.

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Jane Secker: Deputy Chair

Jane Secker is Associate Professor in Educational Development at City St George’s, University of London where she is joint Programme Director of the Masters in Academic Practice. She leads the modules related to digital education and digital literacies in the programme. She was Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor at London School of Economics and Political Science for over 15 years where she advised staff about copyright issues and the online environment. She is a Trustee for the Media and Information Literacy Alliance and was Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group until 2024 and now serves as Deputy Chair. She is a member of the Universities UK Copyright Negotiation and Advisory Committee which negotiates with the Copyright Licensing Agency on the higher education licence. She is also a member of the Copyright Advisory Panel which is a governance group of the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.

Jane is the author of five books, including Copyright and E-learning: a guide for practitioners written with Chris Morrison and published by Facet in 2016. Jane is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She has a PhD from the Aberystwyth University, an honorary doctorate from the Open University and has worked on numerous research projects funded by the British Library, JISC and the University of London.

In collaboration with Chris Morrison, Jane runs the website copyrightliteracy.org, and is co-chair of the ALT Copyright and Online Learning Special Interest Group. They run free monthly webinars on copyright and online learning for the community and the podcast Copyright Waffle and host the International Copyright-literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars (Icepops).

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Members:

Jonas Herriot: Treasurer

Jonas is the Library Manager for Henley Business School. Having first attended LILAC as the public library bursary winner back in 2016 he then joined the LILAC Committee where he was Project Manager before changing roles to Treasurer for both LILAC and ILG. His exposure to the Information Literacy community at the conference helped him when he transitioned from public to academic libraries, and was influential in his way of thinking and working. Despite now working in an academic setting he is still interested in what goes on in public libraries and retains links to the YLG group where he is also Treasurer for their London committee, and uses this crossover to promote IL there.

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Louise Minta: Secretary 

Louise is Liaison Librarian for Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Liverpool. She has worked in libraries since 2002, graduating with an MSc in Information Studies from Leeds Beckett (formerly Leeds Metropolitan University) in 2004. Louise has previously worked in Public Libraries and Further Education, and has worked in the Higher Education sector since 2007.

She is particularly interested in developing librarians’ teaching skills and working with academics to integrate the teaching of information and digital literacy into the curriculum. Previously a member of the Comms Team, Louise became Secretary of the Information Literacy Group in 2022.

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Alison Hicks: Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Information Literacy

Alison is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Information Studies at UCL. In this role, she teaches on the Library and Information Science MA, including the information literacy module, and supervises MA and PhD research. Alison also maintains an active information literacy research agenda, which focuses on sociocultural approaches to information literacy within academic and everyday contexts.

Alison received her PhD from the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, Borås, Sweden and her MSIS from the United States, where she worked for over a decade as an academic librarian. During this time, Alison developed a strong interest in critical information literacy, particularly in relation to international and intercultural settings. Since then, her research interests have expanded to centre on the broader concept of transition as well as the application of qualitative research methods within information literacy research.

Alison is at her happiest when she is outside, either walking or playing netball. She also enjoys working as an inner-city Guide leader as well as volunteering at her local toy library. Her publications are almost entirely available OA and she can also be followed on Twitter.

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Claire Packham: LILAC Chair

Claire Packham is the Head of Library Academic Services at City, University of London, and previously held a number of roles within Reference Services at The British Library. She has a particular interest in information literacy, and has been part of the LILAC committee in various roles since 2010. Claire is now Chair of the LILAC conference committee.

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Rosie Jones: Strategic advisor

Rosie is Director of Student and Library Services at Teesside University. She has worked in academic libraries since 2001, taking a particular interest in games and learning, information literacy and learning space development. She held committee roles with LILAC from 2007 to 2019, and served as Deputy Chair of the Information Literacy Group from 2018 to 2022.

Rosie acts as a strategic advisor to the group and champions information literacy at the highest levels in libraries in the UK.

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Stéphane Goldstein: Advocacy and Outreach Officer

Stéphane is Executive Director of InformAll. He previously led on the Research Information Network’s information literacy activities over five years, during which time he laid the basis for InformAll , initially a collaborative venture and now a social enterprise aimed at promoting the relevance, importance and benefits of IL in the library world and beyond. In that capacity, he has undertaken research and analysis, produced reports and tools and facilitated multi-stakeholder working. Stéphane worked at RIN between 2005 and 2015, helping to set the organisation up.

He was responsible for project management and policy formulation in the broad area of information as a input and output of the research process. He previously worked in a range of science and research policy roles at the Medical Research Council and RCUK.

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Georgie Broad: Communications and Engagement Manager

Georgie is the Library Digital Communications and Information Advisory Officer at the University of Sheffield Library. She works across library teams to ensure that their web content, social media, and any digital communications delivered effectively and accessibly, as well as helping with internal information management and student queries. Georgie is passionate about ensuring that information and media literacy is communicated in a way that is accessible and engaging for everyone, and enjoys speaking and writing about effective social media usage in libraries.

Georgie is currently studying for a in Early Modern Drama, and likes to spend her spare time (what little she has of it!) playing games, writing stories, and drinking lots and lots of good coffee with her two cats.

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Drew Feeney: Public Libraries Representative

Drew is a Museums professional in west central Scotland with over twenty years’ experience managing public libraries too. He is a graduate of both the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh. 

He is also a current PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University , working on a project developing user-led approaches to digital literacies in older adults. He is particularly interested in participative and collaborative approaches to literacy development.  

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Sarah Pavey: Schools Representative

Sarah has worked for many years as a school librarian in both the independent and maintained sectors. She now runs her own education consultancy and training service specialising in information literacy, creativity, innovation & critical thinking, stress management and behavioural management, working with teachers, librarians and students in both primary and secondary schools. She is passionate about embedding information literacy as a life skill and uses a lot of games and practical exercises in her workshops to promote this message to all who attend her courses. 

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Joy McClean: Further Education Representative 

Joy McLean is a Senior Librarian in Further Education, CILIPS trustee, and committee member of ARLGS and ILG. She champions creativity and innovation in libraries and is co-authoring a chapter on creative practices for a forthcoming book on Feminist Librarianship. 

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Padma Inala: HE Rep and Diversity & Inclusion Officer

Padma is a Teaching and Learning Librarian at The University of Manchester and has over 20 years’ experience working in HE libraries. Her main areas of focus are the development and delivery of teaching to students and researchers to support their information literacy and academic skills. Her particular area of interest is in supporting information needs of online/distance learners.

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Katie Smith: Health Sector Representative

Katie works as a Knowledge Specialist at a mental health and community NHS Trust in Reading. Her day-to-day role includes evidence searches, delivering training to NHS staff, students and public health staff, marketing and promotion, and a whole host of other activities. Katie loves working in the health sector because the role includes so many things, so each day is different.
Katie is also currently undertaking research looking at the attitudes of healthcare staff to information literacy skills when they are studying and returning to study after an academic break, to help inform our student support services.

Katie likes challenging her brain through puzzles, video games, escape rooms and anything geeky! She also love the autumn when I can stay indoors, wrap up in homemade knitwear, drink coffee and eat takeaways.

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Elizabeth Brookbank is an Instruction Librarian and Associate Professor at Western Oregon University, where she teaches information literacy to undergraduate students, promotes library services and engages with students over social media, and encourages a culture of reading on campus through her management of the library’s physical and digital Recreational Collections. She earned her Masters degree in Information Science from the University of Washington’s Information School and her B.A. in English Literature and Gender Studies from Middlebury College.

Her main research areas are information literacy, critical library pedagogy, and leisure reading in academic libraries. She co-authored the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature and, most recently, co-edited the contributed volume, Critical Library Pedagogy in Practice.

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Pam McKinney: LIS Representative

Pam is a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield Information School, who has been working there for 14 years. She is the programme coordinator for the MA Librarianship and teaches on our on-campus and distance learning modules in information literacy. Pam leads a module on Business Intelligence and is interested in applying and researching inquiry-based pedagogies. Pam’s research in information literacy has focused on the relationship between information literacy and learning in higher education, and the information literacy of self-tracking. She also supervises PhD and masters students researching information literacy.

Pam’s go-to way to relax is to curl up with a good book – she is a particular fan of dystopian, fantasy and science-fiction. Pam is a mum to 3 school-age kids and they keep her very busy in the evenings and weekends!

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Ella Wharton: Training Officer

Ella is a Learning Development Librarian (Information Skills) at the University of Nottingham. She teaches students about information literacy in searching, evaluating and managing information, and that includes designing async learning resources and planning teaching events, and really loves supporting students in this role, and am looking forward to having a wider impact in the profession!

If you read my previous New Professionals blog, you will know that Ella is a huge fan of podcasts (shout out to Chatting Info Lit!). Ella really enjoys live music, in particular indie bands. Ella loves art, and making things, so will often have a new project on the go! She is quite a busy person, so is often travelling to different cities to see gigs and shows.

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Ami Pendergrass: Training Officer

More information from Ami will be added soon. 

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Bethan Morgan: Training Officer

More information from Bethan will be added soon. 

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