With a background in higher education, library and information management and digital innovation, I am working to build an open information environment that serves everyone.
Current role
Currently, I am University Librarian and Dean of the University Library at the University of Chicago. As part of the university's academic leadership team, I am overseeing the operation of the university library and leading the process of developing and implementing a comprehensive strategic vision for the library's future within the university and the global knowledge system.
Previous roles
Most recently, I was Head of Content and Research Services at the British Library. Reporting to the Chief Librarian, I was responsible for ensuring that contemporary collections and research services met the needs of knowledge seekers and research organisations from the UK and abroard. This included overseeing functions such as: development and implementation of the Library's Content Strategy and Research Services Strategy; content acquisitions and processing of print and digital content, including legal deposit; preservation and management of the digital collections; the subject librarians; digital research services ranging from discovery to repositories, scholarly communications and research data, including the UK DataCite consortium; the redevelopment of the BL's digital library system; and a strategic change management portfolio to modernise our online and onsite research services.
Before joining the British Library, I oversaw the development of open access and research data services at Imperial College London. At Jisc, the UK's digital service provider for higher and further education, I was Programme Manager for digital infrastructure, leading programmes and innovation projects across the UK, including multi-million pound services such as the National Grid Service and the National Centre for Text Mining.
My background is in history, with a PhD from the University of Munich (LMU), and digital humanities and scholarly communications. At LMU I co-founded digital library services in the late 90s that today receive federal funding as part of the national information infrastructure of Germany. At King's College London, I was senior coordinator for a national network on digital research methods in the arts and humanities, and I developed digital community services and infrastructures at the Centre for E-Research.
External and community roles
Over the years, I have engaged with a range of communities and external organisations. Some of these activities include:
- Chair, vice chair and past chair of the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation
- Chair of the Open Repositories conference
- Chair of the advisory board for the library system of the University of Cologne (2015-2025)
- Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute
- Member of CORE's advisory board
- Member of HathiTrust's board of governors
- Member of SPARC's steering committee
- Member of the US Repository Network steering group
- Chair of DataCite's Services and Technology Steering Group (2020-2024)
- Member of DataCite's exectutive board (2019-2024)
- Member of ARL's (Association of Research Libraries) Advocacy and Public Policy Committee (2023-2024)
- Member of the ZBIW (Centre for Library and Information Science) academic advisory board (2021-23)
- Chair of the Digital Shift working group of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) (2019-22)
- Co-Chair UK Research Identifier National Coordinating Committee (2021-22)
- Member of RLUK's Digital Scholarship Network (2018-22)
- Member of the Content Strategy Group of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (2018-21)
- Member of the Universities UK (UUK) open access coordination group (2016-19)
- Member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Digital Transformations Theme advisory group (2013-18)