Meet the Team

Diane McCourt

NAG Committee

Diane is the Collection Development Manager for the Library and Archive Services at the Royal College of Nursing (professional organisation and trade union). Her role encompasses the acquisition, cataloguing and evaluation of electronic and print based academic resources to support lifelong learning and professional development for the RCN’s 435,000 members.

Since qualifying in 2007 from City University she has worked extensively in the academic sector (art & design), focused on academic liaison as an integral part of the Librarians role. Supporting and delivering diverse and inclusive information literacy and information services.

She is currently Vice Chair for the Consortium of Health and Information Libraries London (CHILL), and previously worked with ARLIS UK & Ireland: the Art Libraries Society, (both as Council member, and on their Education and Professional Development Committee.) She is also a Chartership mentor and committed to promoting professional development.

Chrissie Willis-Phillips

NAG Committee

Chrissie Willis-Phillips is Associate Director (Scholarship and Planning) at the University of Reading. Chrissie manages the Collections team, Research engagement team, Research Data management team and Digital Humanities hub at Reading to support and advance all research and learning. Chrissie is particularly interested in process improvement and has been involved in several projects and initiatives to enhance integrations and automations to improve content acquisition and delivery; as well as supporting and developing services in support of all aspects of research and scholarship. Chrissie has worked in libraries for more than 14 years in a variety of roles – including customer services, open access and resources/content.

Jennifer Hill

Editor, “Taking Stock”

Jenny is one of two Resource Acquisitions Librarians at the University of Nottingham, since 2008 she has led the books and one-time purchasing side of the Acquisitions Team, focusing on the purchase of monographs and ebooks for the 8 UK branches of the University of Nottingham Libraries with the addition of standing orders and etextbooks. She has varied experience of other posts within the academic library sector and a background of working and studying in event organisation, marketing and communications.

Anthony Sinnott

Treasurer

Anthony is Access and Procurement Development Manager at University of York. He oversees the purchase of print & electronic resources, the management of subscriptions & databases, and the operation of the reading list system. Anthony is currently leading a project to implement the Leganto reading lists system and has been tasked with investigating innovative purchasing models that ensure maximum access to resources. He has a background in public libraries, having played a key role in setting up Explore York Libraries and Archives as a Social Enterprise (Industrial and Provident Society with exempt charitable status) and, to participate in wider sector work, currently sits on two Northern Collaboration Special Interest Groups (Content & Enabling).

Jackie Stringer

Head of Online Programme

Jackie comes from a background in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service in the Education Sector. She has worked at a senior level at publishers, online learning companies, and educational supply companies.

Her current role is as a Senior Book Specialist at ProQuest where she has worked for the last 7 years. She is focused on supporting customers with workflow, acquisitions and collection development.

https://about.proquest.com/en/content-solutions/books/

Eric Jackson

NAG Committee

Eric has worked at Leeds Beckett University since 2003, initially as a library assistant, then as Bibliographic Services Supervisor, and currently as their first Collections and Acquisitions manager, leading this newly formed team. Collections and Acquisitions is a team of Librarians and assistants working across two campuses. The team has a wide remit which includes all aspects of acquisitions, stock management, reading list implementation and administration, discards, training development and delivery, and project work; plus the development and interpretation of both user and stock analytics.
C&A has built a reputation as a team which embodies a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and individual development, not just within Leeds Beckett University Library, but also within the wider sector community, with team members presenting regularly at a regional and national level at conferences and events, including Northern Collaboration, NEYAL, UKSG, Meeting the Reading List Challenge, and suppliers’ open days, user groups, and forums.

Prior to joining Leeds Beckett, Eric had worked in various roles including bookshop assistant, F.E. lecturer, and Distribution Manager for The Big Issue in the North

Kathryn Quinn

NAG Committee

Jennie Hillyard

NAG Development Manager

Jennie has been retitled Development Manager as NAG works to put in place our business plan and development for the future.  She is the first point of contact for our members.  She works part time for NAG (mainly on Mondays) and for the remainder of her week Jennie is the Library and Archives Manager for The Common Room.  As part of her role, she catalogues a wide variety of materials, and it has been involved with selecting and implementing Koha. She is also responsible for managing a team of volunteers and planning their project work.

NAG also employs Christine Hall as our Financial Administrator.

David Stokes

NAG Committee

Sally Allen

NAG Committee

Sally is an Area Sales Manager at Browns Books For Students, part of the Little Group, taking care of academic libraries in the Midlands and East of England – from early years to HE institutions.

Prior to joining Browns in June 2020 Sally spent 29 years at Dawson Books performing various roles including sales and supporting libraries with new LMS EDI installations.

Sally has a great wealth of knowledge within the book industry including the internal supply chain workflows including wholesale and public library supply.

Emma Booth

NAG Committee

Emma is the Metadata Manager for Content Management at the University of Manchester Library. She manages a team of metadata specialists and cataloguers who are responsible for creating, importing and enriching bibliographic metadata to support resource discovery and evidence-based collection development activities.

Emma is an advocate for ensuring that high-quality, standardised metadata is an intrinsic part of content acquisitions processes. She acts as liaison between the NAG and the CILIP Metadata & Discovery Group, working on advocacy projects in areas such as the future of metadata standards, metadata quality for books and e-books (including Open Access) and the development of library content systems and supply chains.

Twitter: @EmmaE_B

Heather Sherman

NAG Committee

Heather has vast experience in library systems, technology, physical and digital supply chains, metadata life-cycle, e-commerce, eBooks, acquisitions and cataloguing especially in relation to academic libraries. Prior to joining BDS in 2020, Heather worked for Dawson / BLS for 15 years. She began her career as a graduate trainee at the British Library, has held posts within academic libraries and has worked with libraries worldwide including the Bodleian Library, Imperial College, the University of South Africa, and Public Libraries throughout Ireland. A regular presenter at conferences and training events, she is a member of several industry committees, and a regular presenter at Conferences and training events.

Rachel Schulkins

Chair

Rachel is the Acquisitions and Document Delivery Manager at the University of Liverpool. She oversees the selection and purchases of print and digital resources and is also responsible for the Inter-lending and Reading Lists systems. With over 15 years working in the sector, Rachel has substantial experience of academic Library services, complemented by her background in academic teaching. She has given talks and demonstrations, as well as published on subjects ranging from Keats and Romanticism, Jewish Studies and innovative library practice. Rachel enjoys putting her knowledge into practice and developing new services around content provision, and also trialling new technologies in the effort of challenging and progressing existing practices and policies.

Laura Davison

NAG Committee

Laura Davison is Content Acquisitions Lead at the University of Surrey. Laura manages the acquisition of all one-off purchases, the Interlibrary Loans service and the administration of the Reading Lists and Digitisation service. She is also part of the Digital Textbooks project team.  Laura began her career as a public library ‘Saturday Assistant’ before heading off to University and has worked in College and University Libraries since 2001. She has been specialising in resources, collections and content since 2005. Laura is particularly interested in streamlining acquisitions workflows and working with suppliers on systems integrations.

Jeff Miller

NAG Committee

Jeff joined the University of Huddersfield in 2018 as Acquisitions Team Leader, having had a long background in Bookselling, including running shops at the Institute of Education, on the high street and as a private rare book dealer.  Bringing a strong commercial eye to the role, he set about reviewing every process and procedure, maximising efficiency within both budgets and working practice.

A strong believer in marginal gains, he continues to analyse data to identify patterns and trends, challenge perceptions and provide accurate and informative reports to Librarians, whilst always looking for new opportunities without compromising quality of service to both students and academics alike.

Elle Lund

NAG Committee

Eleanor (Elle) is an Information Assistant at the University of Exeter Library, having recently relocated from Lancaster. During her 4 years at Lancaster University Library, first as a Library Aide, then as a Library Content Assistant, she was heavily involved in work on developing the wellbeing collection. In this time she also completed the LISM PGDip with the University of Sheffield. She managed library displays and reading lists on EDI events, including Black History Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, Autism Appreciation Week, and Pride. Her passion for EDI extends to an interest in digital accessibility and Open Research.

Jo Adams-Lingwood

NAG Committee

Jo Adams-Lingwood is an Assistant Librarian in the Acquisitions team at London School of Economics Library. Jo manages the team in working to provide content for both teaching and research, which includes print and eBook purchasing, digitisation of chapter extracts, and operating the inter-library loan service.

Jo joined LSE in this role in 2017, and he has been working in academic libraries since 2009. Jo graduated from the MA in Library and Information Science at UCL in 2012 and moved from supervising front-line enquiries to an acquisitions role in 2014.

Jo’s Master dissertation was focussed on comparing the Universal library as conceived by Borges and Otlet in understand how people navigate vast knowledge repositories and how the library can be understood as systems of interactions rather than just a physical location. Jo has since drawn on and
applied this theoretical approach in acquisitions work, particularly inter-library lending.

Jo has become expert in using the Alma LMS and related Ex Libris products, and works closely on this with the #metadata and systems librarians to make best use of the system’s functionality. Jo is also skilled in gathering and analysing data on usage trends and other metrics to predict demand and applying this to manage workloads and anticipate the library user’s needs.

Rachel Bramley

NAG Committee

Rachel Bramley is currently a Learning and Teaching Librarian at Sussex, responsible for online Reading Lists (using Talis Aspire) and supervision of the team who review them. She is a member of several strategic groups in the Library looking at digital content and Etextbooks, and has overseen projects such as a library-wide project to transform the Core Collection to Reference Only and providing library services to new Online Distance Learning courses.

She completed the PGCHE course to qualify as a teacher in HE, and has been a Talis Aspire User Group rep and a Publicity Officer for CILIP in Sussex, helping to organise events and professional development workshops for local members across all library sectors. Earlier in her career she worked for the BBC, in their various London libraries, as well as the NHS, in medical libraries. She then spent 15 years in the FE sector, where her biggest project as Library Manager was being involved in the designing and building of a new library for the 6th Form College where she worked.

Jack Reid

NAG Committee

Jack is the Content and Discovery Librarian at the University of East London. Jack manages the acquisition, metadata and serial management processes and is the lead for the inter-library loan service. Jack is also responsible for the administration of the LMS (Alma) alongside other team members at UEL. Coming from a background in teaching Jack started his career in HE Libraries in 2016 taking his post as the Content and Discovery Librarian following completion of an MA in Library and Information studies in October 2018. Jack specialises in marginal gains and workflow improvements for staff efficiency this includes system integration and relevant API and/or autonomous data interchanges. Jack also has a keen interest in procurement practice and legislation and is currently the co-chair of LUPC library commodity group.

Vickie Varley

NAG Committee