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KnowUK Advisory Board

At KnowUK we have always had close contact with our subscribers and all site developments and content additions are implemented in consultation with our subscribers.

To ensure that we received advice from a representative sample of our subscribers, we convened a KnowUK Advisory Board.

Advisory Board Members

Liz Bowe, County Library Operations Manager, Cumbria

Liz Bowe is currently County Library Operations Manager in Cumbria with responsibility for managing the delivery of a comprehensive, efficient and socially inclusive public library service and ensuring effective day-to-day operation and provision of information and ICT systems. Originally from Cumbria, Liz left to qualify and work in London then returned to join Cumbria County Council. Her previous posts include BLPES Academic Request Librarian; Academic Library Researcher; Team Librarian; Children’s Librarian; Area Library Manager; Senior Library Manager and County Co-coordinator of Children’s Public Library services. Liz has recieved the Royal Charter Library Association Centenary Medal for outstanding contribution and achievement to library work and a a Janet Ahlberg Award in recognition of regional committee work, as well as being a nationally selected judge for book awards on two occasions. Throughout her career she has been involved and interested in the development of delivering information services electronically in public libraries, with the aim of establishing a 24/7 virtual library. Cumbria was one of the earliest authorities to enable public internet access and remote relevant information provision is vital in a rural county such as Cumbria.

Jessie Draper, Operational Co-ordinator, research.gateway, BBC

Jessie Draper did a degree in Library and Information Studies at Ealing College of Higher Education (now Thames Valley University) and has worked in the BBC since 1988. Jessie has worked in many different areas of the Information and Archives department of the BBC. This department is responsible for the cataloguing, preservation and exploitation of the BBC's media archive which encompasses a diverse range of media including, film, videotape, photographs, sound recordings, commercial records and CDs. Jessie is now the Operational Co-ordinator in charge of a team of information professionals who deliver training and coaching for people within the corporation all aspects of the research.gateway intranet site which is the research portal that is provided to the BBC by the Information and Archives department. As well as many databases that are maintained by Information and Archives staff, the site allows access to many other websites. Jessie is particularly passionate about the provenance trail of information and believes that this is becoming an increasingly important issue for all who work in libraries and archives.

Elaine Fulton, Director, Scottish Library and Information Council and CILIPS

Elaine Fulton was previously Assistant Director of SLIC/CILIPS, with her work focusing on the development of information and communications technology systems and services in libraries, in particular supporting the roll out of the People's Network in Scotland. She is currently involved in developments in interoperability and access standards, developing a Scottish Cultural Portal, and encouraging co-operation and collaboration in the library and information sectors and with a number of key national agencies. Elaine's previous experience was in public libraries for a period of 20 years and she also spent a short time working with an automated system supplier.

Cathy Gormal, E-Learning, Information and Web Support Co-ordinator, Renfrewshire

Julie Hall, Reference Librarian, London Borough of Lewisham

Julie Hall is currently Information and Heritage Manager, London Borough of Lewisham, with responsibility for reference and information services across the borough, local studies and archives, the borough information service and the Lewisham Interpretation Service. She has a BA(Hons) in Medieval and Modern History from Liverpool University and a DipLib from Manchester Library School. Julie is also a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and has a DMS from Christchurch College, Canterbury. Julie started her professional career in 1980 as an assistant librarian for Bexley London Borough and has since worked in most areas of public libraries, before concentrating on information work. She was Customer Services Manager with Bexley before joining Richmond upon Thames in 1997 as Reference Services Manager. She took up the new post of Information and Heritage Manager with Lewisham in 2004. Julie has been a pioneer of delivering information services electronically in public libraries, with the aim of establishing a 24/7 virtual library. Richmond libraries had free public internet access in all libraries since 1999 and Julie built up an impressive collection of online resources which are delivered by 15 service points and remotely to registered users. She intends to do the same at Lewisham which already has an extensive collection of online resources. She is closely involved with the development of FOI in Lewisham and with the delivery of e-government services. She is also developing projects to digitise the Local Studies Collection and make it more widely available in libraries and across the web.

Tim Hannah, Learning Resources Facilitator, Swansea College of FE

Tim Hannah is a Facilitator in the Learning Resources Centre at Swansea College. He has an Honours degree from the University of Lancaster in Education Studies and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (Further Education) from Swansea Institute. Before taking up his present post, Tim was a tutor in Literacy and Numeracy and Basic Information Technology. He is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Tim lives in Swansea with his wife and two sons, Jack and Morgan.

Craig Jones, Senior Manager E-services, Surrey

Craig Jones currently works for Surrey Libraries as Senior Manager for E-services, Web and the Surrey Net, with responsibility for a team of staff concerned with developing the electronic delivery of information. He has only recently been appointed to this position, at the beginning of November. Prior to that Craig was senior librarian for Mid Surrey libraries. After studying Librarianship and CIassics at Aberystwyth university, he worked for a while as a librarian with a television company. Craig has now been with Surrey Libraries for over 10 years, but in 1995 he took a year out and did a job exchange with a librarian in Sydney, Australia, in order to gain some wider experience of the library world and another country's way of life.

Liz Martin, Librarian, Nuffield College, Oxford

Liz Martin has worked in library systems supply and academic libraries for 25 years, and has been using online systems for 23 of those. After a degree in modern languages from Cambridge, a trainee year at UCL and a librarianship diploma from the University of Northumbria, she worked for the British Library in London for five years, on bibliographic record supply services and training. In 1985, Liz moved from London to Oxford, where she has been ever since. A spell at Blackwell Technical Services doing marketing and training for their serials system PEARL was followed by four years at Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) as Periodicals and Map Librarian. In 1990 Liz moved to the Bodleian Law Library, where she spent 10 years, first as Foreign Law Librarian, then Head of Reader Services and Manager of the European Documentation Centre. In 2001 Liz was appointed Librarian of Nuffield College Library, a graduate College of Oxford University specialising in the Social Sciences, with an excellent research library. She also serves on Oxford University's Electronic Resources Committee, which directs the policy and acquisition of all electronic resources within the libraries of the University.

Linda McCabe, Senior Information Researcher, research.gateway, BBC

Linda McCabe joined BBC Information and Archives in 1991. She originally worked as a researcher supporting programme makers in news and non-news areas. She has also been a question verifier and question setter for various BBC quiz programmes including Brain of Britain and The Weakest Link. Linda was part of the original team who launched the ground- breaking BBC Research Central intranet site in 2000 and now works on the 2003 version, research.gateway. research.gateway is a BBC wide intranet site housing a wide range of research resources - giving BBC staff online access to newspapers and magazines, television and sound archives, music, pronunciation, contacts, stills, anniversaries and events databases, commercial reference sources, evaluated websites, search advice, training and much more.

For further information on the editorial board please contact our Webmaster.

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