About me
my qualifications, skills and experience
A registered archivist with over twenty-five years experience of working in archives, libraries and museums across the higher education, local government and charity sectors. With considerable experience of managing information securely with a track record of providing strategic direction, team leadership, collaborative partnerships and innovation.
Qualifications
- MA Archives Administration (UCL, 1995)
- Registered Member of the Archives and Records Association (since 1999)
- I completed PRINCE2 Foundation (2004)
- Postgraduate Certificate Professional Management in Higher Education (2011)
- I am a Clore Fellow having completed the HEY100 Emerging Leaders programme (2018)
I am a strong supporter of continuing professional development, keeping my skills and knowledge current through a wide range of courses, workshops and conferences. I was a member of the Advisory Board for the TATE HLF Access to Archives project (2013-2016), I served on the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Partnership and Sustainability Sub-committee (2016-2019) and was part of the international Curatorial Group reviewing the National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s Levels of Preservation (2019-2020).
Skills and Experience
- 2015-2020 University Archivist, University of Hull
I managed the University archives team based at the Hull History Centre, including the planning and strategic direction of the service, negotiating with individuals and organisations about their collections and seeking funding to accelerate our activities. As a member of the Library’s Senior Management Team I played an active role in planning and strategic direction. In 2017 as part of Hull UK City of Culture I worked on a number of exhibitions including New Eyes Each Year using the Philip Larkin collections. As part of a small team creating an archive of City of Culture, I helped secure £200K to employ a digital archivist and external developers to work alongside colleagues responsible for the University’s Samvera repository. Archivematica was incorporated into the collections workflow ahead of providing access to born-digital archives from the collections. - 2008-2015 Senior Archivist, University of Hull
I helped prepare the collections for the move from the University Library to the Hull History Centre. I helped shape the new practices and policies for the centre and created a dedicated website and integrated online catalogue. A successful application to the National Cataloguing Grant Scheme to catalogue the papers of architect Francis Johnson featured the use of LEGO and Minecraft to engage new audiences. We hosted four digital skills trainee posts on the TNA’s Transforming Archives initiative and lead the Danelaw Digital consortium as part of the Bridging the Digital Gap programme involving the Universities of Hull and York, Norfolk Record Office and the East Anglia Film Archive.For two years (2010-2012) I was seconded to the post of Digital Archivist and collaborated with colleagues from the Universities of Virginia, Stanford and Yale on approaches to born-digital archives. The university began to actively collect born-digital archives for the first time and I put policies, practices and procedures in-place based on this experience. I contributed to the AIMS Project White Paper and spoke widely advocating practical first steps in digital preservation. - 2013-2016 Honorary Teaching Fellow, University of Dundee
I taught Cataloguing in the Digital Age module on its distance learning course - 2005-2008 Collections Project Manager, Hull Museums
Leading a project team of fifteen and the project budget of £1.4m to eliminate the Service’s extensive documentation backlog. Working with the curators, I managed the specification and implementation of the KE-Emu Collection Management System to facilitate online discovery of the collections.