Research Services Librarian (Research Data Management) at The University of Manchester Library. Previously working in data management, open access and research support at Leeds University Library. PhD in Medieval Studies from the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds. My research interests are in the late medieval ecclesiastical history of England, including secular colleges, parish churches, and cathedrals, as well as liturgy and liturgical manuscripts. My thesis examines the development of the institutional identity of the Chapel of St Mary and the Holy Angels, York, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. In particular it explores the relationship of the constitution, administration, personnel and liturgy of the chapel with that of York Minster, next to which it stood. Part of my thesis is a detailed examination of the York Antiphonal. Current interests are also in research libraries, scholarly communication, research data management, open research, researcher skills and PGR development. Supervisors: Dr William Flynn and Professor Richard Morris
LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries, 2018
Aim: This paper considers how changes in the research landscape are simultaneously changing the s... more Aim: This paper considers how changes in the research landscape are simultaneously changing the skills needs of library staff, and opening up new opportunities for researchers to pursue careers within libraries. It explores what skills, competencies and knowledge staff with doctoral qualifications can bring to library research support services. Context: Librarians working in research support areas need different skills to the skills academic librarians have traditionally needed. There is currently a gap in the training which those undertaking professional librarianship qualifications receive, in relation to the skills needed for research roles. Simultaneously , expansion in the numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development , equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Methodology: This paper compares the skills' needs of research librarians with the competencies and skills of doctoral graduates, specifically in the UK context (as articulated in the Vitae Researcher Development Framework). It also surveys and discusses the skill-set and qualifications of research support staff employed at three UK research libraries. Results: Understanding the needs and, importantly, the behaviours, of researchers is integral to the provision of a successful library research support service. Many of the skills which are necessary for library graduates to have, are those that are already identified as essential researcher skills. The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This thesis examines the development of the institutional identity of the Chapel of St Mary and t... more This thesis examines the development of the institutional identity of the Chapel of St Mary and the Holy Angels, York, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Following its foundation next to York Minster in the late 1170s, the chapel went through a series of reforms and re-foundations. It is these moments of activity and change which enable us to examine how the chapel’s identity was being constructed and conceived. Over the course of its history, the community and its identity developed in response both to the wishes of its founder and its relationship with the cathedral church. This thesis accordingly explores the relationship between the constitutions, administration, personnel and liturgy of the two institutions.
The thesis is split into two parts: Part One examines the foundations and constitution of the chapel. Chapter One surveys existing approaches to the chapel and examines the context of the foundation of St Mary and the Holy Angels’ within the cathedral close and some elements of its early purpose and function. Chapter Two explores the development of the chapel’s constitution in the thirteenth century, with a focus upon its administrative figures. Chapter Three considers the challenges to the chapel and its identity from external influences upon its personnel and architectural developments within the cathedral in the fourteenth century. Part Two focuses on the long fifteenth century. Chapter Four is a prosopographical study of the chapel’s canons, demonstrating the cohesion between the communities of the chapel and minster. Chapter Five offers a study of the York Antiphonal, considering its relevance to the York Use and liturgical renewal in the fifteenth century. Chapter Six addresses aspects of the liturgical identity of the chapel using the York Antiphonal. Chapter Seven concludes the history of the chapel and considers the community and dissolution of the chapel in the sixteenth century.
This paper was presented at LIBER Conference 2017, 5-7 July, University of Patras, Greece.
The r... more This paper was presented at LIBER Conference 2017, 5-7 July, University of Patras, Greece.
The role of libraries and librarians in supporting researchers is changing due to an evolving research environment. Changes in the scholarly communications landscape and in researcher skills development, as well as the emphasis placed on using bibliometrics to evaluate academic performance, have shifted the focus in many academic libraries, encouraging them to re-think how best to support their institutional research strategy. The challenge is understanding the needs of researchers and ensuring that research support librarians have the right skills to respond to these needs.
Expansion in numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development, equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Are the new generation of researchers therefore more suited to support the needs of other researchers than they have been previously, and can they offer a different, but complementary, skill-set and perspective, to library school graduates without research experience? The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds, who can demonstrate a shared experience, understanding, and a personal enthusiasm for research, arguably has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This paper surveys and discusses the changes in the skill-set, qualifications, and professional experience, of research support staff employed at Leeds University Library, and other UK research libraries. It explores whether the changes in library research support services and the development of specialist library teams has resulted in the recruitment of staff with different professional backgrounds, including researchers themselves.
In the late 1170s Roger of Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York, from 1154 to 1181, founded a colleg... more In the late 1170s Roger of Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York, from 1154 to 1181, founded a collegiate chapel on the north side of York Minster, dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Angels. The physical relationship between the minster and the chapel in many ways reflects their institutional relationship. The two buildings were physically close but they lay under different jurisdictions. The minster was the responsibility of the dean and chapter of York, whereas the chapel was under the authority of the archbishop and stood towards the edge of what tradition regards as the curia of the archbishop’s palace. Over the course of the chapel’s history, the community and its identity developed in response to both its founder’s wishes and its relationship with the cathedral church.
This paper will address the nature of the special relationship between the archbishops of York and the community of their collegiate chapel, in particular the role of the chapel’s sacrist who was responsible for its finances and management. This relationship is considered from two main chronological periods: firstly, the foundation of the chapel by Roger in the twelfth century, as an archiepiscopal sacred space for his own clerks, distinct and yet connected to the minster, communally and liturgically. Secondly, the paper will briefly discuss how the twelfth-century institutional identity of the community is reflected in the fifteenth century, in terms of patronage and the preferment of the archbishops’ clerks and kinsman and as a career route into the more valuable prebends within the cathedral church.
The survival of an uncharacteristically large parish church in the small village of Wensley in th... more The survival of an uncharacteristically large parish church in the small village of Wensley in the Yorkshire Dales, together with a long succession of medieval features and fittings, combines to suggest there is something special about the site. To find so many visual reminders of the important role the church once played as a place of worship suggests the deliberate preservation and cherishing of its religious identity. Underlying the compartmentalised periodical history are themes which suggest a long-standing continuity within the landscape. Yet no previous attempt has been made to put these elements together into a single study of the church and its site.
This paper explores the site of the church at Wensley as a focus of secular patronage for the local elite and their commemoration throughout its history, alongside the idea of the ritual power of place. The evidence for Wensley’s status as an early medieval monastic foundation and its development into a large parish church, which became the ritual focus of the late medieval estate of the Lords of Bolton, will be examined. In particular the location of the church and the appropriation of the River Ure and its crossing at Wensley will be discussed. By examining the deliberate preservation of ritual continuity at Wensley we can consider the potential significance of the site to its later medieval inheritors and why it continued to attract the patronage and ritual acts of local secular lords.
The Beverley Prayer Book (Leeds University, Brotherton Collection MS 16) is a fifteenth-century m... more The Beverley Prayer Book (Leeds University, Brotherton Collection MS 16) is a fifteenth-century manuscript Book of Hours, associated with Beverley Minster in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The book is unusual because it contains services for the York Use (the liturgical rite of the Northern Province of England) and also the Sarum Use (the primary rite of the Southern Province). This double liturgical use suggests that the differences were seen as significant marks of ecclesiastical identity, and that whoever commissioned the book regularly took part in devotional life in both provinces. The book’s marks of personalisation, including obits, owners’ inscriptions and coats of arms, provide clues to its connections with the East Riding, and also with the diocese of Lincoln.
Such ‘personal’ prayer books were intended to be used publicly and to be seen by others, and were symbols of status, wealth and aspiration, as well as expressions of personal piety. This paper discusses the context of MS 16 within the collection of Books of Hours at the Brotherton Library, in order to consider the genre of these manuscripts and their modern uses. Under the theme of book ownership, both medieval and modern, this paper seeks to address the history of the book’s provenance and use, by examining its marks of personalisation, and the ways in which the prayer book represents aspects of the owner’s social and religious identity.
In the first week of July, over 300 delegates from research libraries across Europe (and includin... more In the first week of July, over 300 delegates from research libraries across Europe (and including a few from the USA and Canada), gathered in the sunny seaside city of Patras, Greece, for the LIBER 46th Annual Conference. I was fortunate to be among them, representing Leeds University Library at this international event by presenting a paper in one of the parallel sessions.
LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries, 2018
Aim: This paper considers how changes in the research landscape are simultaneously changing the s... more Aim: This paper considers how changes in the research landscape are simultaneously changing the skills needs of library staff, and opening up new opportunities for researchers to pursue careers within libraries. It explores what skills, competencies and knowledge staff with doctoral qualifications can bring to library research support services. Context: Librarians working in research support areas need different skills to the skills academic librarians have traditionally needed. There is currently a gap in the training which those undertaking professional librarianship qualifications receive, in relation to the skills needed for research roles. Simultaneously , expansion in the numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development , equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Methodology: This paper compares the skills' needs of research librarians with the competencies and skills of doctoral graduates, specifically in the UK context (as articulated in the Vitae Researcher Development Framework). It also surveys and discusses the skill-set and qualifications of research support staff employed at three UK research libraries. Results: Understanding the needs and, importantly, the behaviours, of researchers is integral to the provision of a successful library research support service. Many of the skills which are necessary for library graduates to have, are those that are already identified as essential researcher skills. The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This thesis examines the development of the institutional identity of the Chapel of St Mary and t... more This thesis examines the development of the institutional identity of the Chapel of St Mary and the Holy Angels, York, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Following its foundation next to York Minster in the late 1170s, the chapel went through a series of reforms and re-foundations. It is these moments of activity and change which enable us to examine how the chapel’s identity was being constructed and conceived. Over the course of its history, the community and its identity developed in response both to the wishes of its founder and its relationship with the cathedral church. This thesis accordingly explores the relationship between the constitutions, administration, personnel and liturgy of the two institutions.
The thesis is split into two parts: Part One examines the foundations and constitution of the chapel. Chapter One surveys existing approaches to the chapel and examines the context of the foundation of St Mary and the Holy Angels’ within the cathedral close and some elements of its early purpose and function. Chapter Two explores the development of the chapel’s constitution in the thirteenth century, with a focus upon its administrative figures. Chapter Three considers the challenges to the chapel and its identity from external influences upon its personnel and architectural developments within the cathedral in the fourteenth century. Part Two focuses on the long fifteenth century. Chapter Four is a prosopographical study of the chapel’s canons, demonstrating the cohesion between the communities of the chapel and minster. Chapter Five offers a study of the York Antiphonal, considering its relevance to the York Use and liturgical renewal in the fifteenth century. Chapter Six addresses aspects of the liturgical identity of the chapel using the York Antiphonal. Chapter Seven concludes the history of the chapel and considers the community and dissolution of the chapel in the sixteenth century.
This paper was presented at LIBER Conference 2017, 5-7 July, University of Patras, Greece.
The r... more This paper was presented at LIBER Conference 2017, 5-7 July, University of Patras, Greece.
The role of libraries and librarians in supporting researchers is changing due to an evolving research environment. Changes in the scholarly communications landscape and in researcher skills development, as well as the emphasis placed on using bibliometrics to evaluate academic performance, have shifted the focus in many academic libraries, encouraging them to re-think how best to support their institutional research strategy. The challenge is understanding the needs of researchers and ensuring that research support librarians have the right skills to respond to these needs.
Expansion in numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development, equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Are the new generation of researchers therefore more suited to support the needs of other researchers than they have been previously, and can they offer a different, but complementary, skill-set and perspective, to library school graduates without research experience? The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds, who can demonstrate a shared experience, understanding, and a personal enthusiasm for research, arguably has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This paper surveys and discusses the changes in the skill-set, qualifications, and professional experience, of research support staff employed at Leeds University Library, and other UK research libraries. It explores whether the changes in library research support services and the development of specialist library teams has resulted in the recruitment of staff with different professional backgrounds, including researchers themselves.
In the late 1170s Roger of Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York, from 1154 to 1181, founded a colleg... more In the late 1170s Roger of Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York, from 1154 to 1181, founded a collegiate chapel on the north side of York Minster, dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Angels. The physical relationship between the minster and the chapel in many ways reflects their institutional relationship. The two buildings were physically close but they lay under different jurisdictions. The minster was the responsibility of the dean and chapter of York, whereas the chapel was under the authority of the archbishop and stood towards the edge of what tradition regards as the curia of the archbishop’s palace. Over the course of the chapel’s history, the community and its identity developed in response to both its founder’s wishes and its relationship with the cathedral church.
This paper will address the nature of the special relationship between the archbishops of York and the community of their collegiate chapel, in particular the role of the chapel’s sacrist who was responsible for its finances and management. This relationship is considered from two main chronological periods: firstly, the foundation of the chapel by Roger in the twelfth century, as an archiepiscopal sacred space for his own clerks, distinct and yet connected to the minster, communally and liturgically. Secondly, the paper will briefly discuss how the twelfth-century institutional identity of the community is reflected in the fifteenth century, in terms of patronage and the preferment of the archbishops’ clerks and kinsman and as a career route into the more valuable prebends within the cathedral church.
The survival of an uncharacteristically large parish church in the small village of Wensley in th... more The survival of an uncharacteristically large parish church in the small village of Wensley in the Yorkshire Dales, together with a long succession of medieval features and fittings, combines to suggest there is something special about the site. To find so many visual reminders of the important role the church once played as a place of worship suggests the deliberate preservation and cherishing of its religious identity. Underlying the compartmentalised periodical history are themes which suggest a long-standing continuity within the landscape. Yet no previous attempt has been made to put these elements together into a single study of the church and its site.
This paper explores the site of the church at Wensley as a focus of secular patronage for the local elite and their commemoration throughout its history, alongside the idea of the ritual power of place. The evidence for Wensley’s status as an early medieval monastic foundation and its development into a large parish church, which became the ritual focus of the late medieval estate of the Lords of Bolton, will be examined. In particular the location of the church and the appropriation of the River Ure and its crossing at Wensley will be discussed. By examining the deliberate preservation of ritual continuity at Wensley we can consider the potential significance of the site to its later medieval inheritors and why it continued to attract the patronage and ritual acts of local secular lords.
The Beverley Prayer Book (Leeds University, Brotherton Collection MS 16) is a fifteenth-century m... more The Beverley Prayer Book (Leeds University, Brotherton Collection MS 16) is a fifteenth-century manuscript Book of Hours, associated with Beverley Minster in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The book is unusual because it contains services for the York Use (the liturgical rite of the Northern Province of England) and also the Sarum Use (the primary rite of the Southern Province). This double liturgical use suggests that the differences were seen as significant marks of ecclesiastical identity, and that whoever commissioned the book regularly took part in devotional life in both provinces. The book’s marks of personalisation, including obits, owners’ inscriptions and coats of arms, provide clues to its connections with the East Riding, and also with the diocese of Lincoln.
Such ‘personal’ prayer books were intended to be used publicly and to be seen by others, and were symbols of status, wealth and aspiration, as well as expressions of personal piety. This paper discusses the context of MS 16 within the collection of Books of Hours at the Brotherton Library, in order to consider the genre of these manuscripts and their modern uses. Under the theme of book ownership, both medieval and modern, this paper seeks to address the history of the book’s provenance and use, by examining its marks of personalisation, and the ways in which the prayer book represents aspects of the owner’s social and religious identity.
In the first week of July, over 300 delegates from research libraries across Europe (and includin... more In the first week of July, over 300 delegates from research libraries across Europe (and including a few from the USA and Canada), gathered in the sunny seaside city of Patras, Greece, for the LIBER 46th Annual Conference. I was fortunate to be among them, representing Leeds University Library at this international event by presenting a paper in one of the parallel sessions.
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The thesis is split into two parts: Part One examines the foundations and constitution of the chapel. Chapter One surveys existing approaches to the chapel and examines the context of the foundation of St Mary and the Holy Angels’ within the cathedral close and some elements of its early purpose and function. Chapter Two explores the development of the chapel’s constitution in the thirteenth century, with a focus upon its administrative figures. Chapter Three considers the challenges to the chapel and its identity from external influences upon its personnel and architectural developments within the cathedral in the fourteenth century. Part Two focuses on the long fifteenth century. Chapter Four is a prosopographical study of the chapel’s canons, demonstrating the cohesion between the communities of the chapel and minster. Chapter Five offers a study of the York Antiphonal, considering its relevance to the York Use and liturgical renewal in the fifteenth century. Chapter Six addresses aspects of the liturgical identity of the chapel using the York Antiphonal. Chapter Seven concludes the history of the chapel and considers the community and dissolution of the chapel in the sixteenth century.
The role of libraries and librarians in supporting researchers is changing due to an evolving research environment. Changes in the scholarly communications landscape and in researcher skills development, as well as the emphasis placed on using bibliometrics to evaluate academic performance, have shifted the focus in many academic libraries, encouraging them to re-think how best to support their institutional research strategy. The challenge is understanding the needs of researchers and ensuring that research support librarians have the right skills to respond to these needs.
Expansion in numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development, equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Are the new generation of researchers therefore more suited to support the needs of other researchers than they have been previously, and can they offer a different, but complementary, skill-set and perspective, to library school graduates without research experience? The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds, who can demonstrate a shared experience, understanding, and a personal enthusiasm for research, arguably has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This paper surveys and discusses the changes in the skill-set, qualifications, and professional experience, of research support staff employed at Leeds University Library, and other UK research libraries. It explores whether the changes in library research support services and the development of specialist library teams has resulted in the recruitment of staff with different professional backgrounds, including researchers themselves.
This paper will address the nature of the special relationship between the archbishops of York and the community of their collegiate chapel, in particular the role of the chapel’s sacrist who was responsible for its finances and management. This relationship is considered from two main chronological periods: firstly, the foundation of the chapel by Roger in the twelfth century, as an archiepiscopal sacred space for his own clerks, distinct and yet connected to the minster, communally and liturgically. Secondly, the paper will briefly discuss how the twelfth-century institutional identity of the community is reflected in the fifteenth century, in terms of patronage and the preferment of the archbishops’ clerks and kinsman and as a career route into the more valuable prebends within the cathedral church.
This paper explores the site of the church at Wensley as a focus of secular patronage for the local elite and their commemoration throughout its history, alongside the idea of the ritual power of place. The evidence for Wensley’s status as an early medieval monastic foundation and its development into a large parish church, which became the ritual focus of the late medieval estate of the Lords of Bolton, will be examined. In particular the location of the church and the appropriation of the River Ure and its crossing at Wensley will be discussed. By examining the deliberate preservation of ritual continuity at Wensley we can consider the potential significance of the site to its later medieval inheritors and why it continued to attract the patronage and ritual acts of local secular lords.
Such ‘personal’ prayer books were intended to be used publicly and to be seen by others, and were symbols of status, wealth and aspiration, as well as expressions of personal piety. This paper discusses the context of MS 16 within the collection of Books of Hours at the Brotherton Library, in order to consider the genre of these manuscripts and their modern uses. Under the theme of book ownership, both medieval and modern, this paper seeks to address the history of the book’s provenance and use, by examining its marks of personalisation, and the ways in which the prayer book represents aspects of the owner’s social and religious identity.
Read my full blog review of the conference at https://leedsunilibrary.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/sustainable-knowledge-and-the-power-of-libraries-liber-annual-conference-university-of-patras-july-2017/
The thesis is split into two parts: Part One examines the foundations and constitution of the chapel. Chapter One surveys existing approaches to the chapel and examines the context of the foundation of St Mary and the Holy Angels’ within the cathedral close and some elements of its early purpose and function. Chapter Two explores the development of the chapel’s constitution in the thirteenth century, with a focus upon its administrative figures. Chapter Three considers the challenges to the chapel and its identity from external influences upon its personnel and architectural developments within the cathedral in the fourteenth century. Part Two focuses on the long fifteenth century. Chapter Four is a prosopographical study of the chapel’s canons, demonstrating the cohesion between the communities of the chapel and minster. Chapter Five offers a study of the York Antiphonal, considering its relevance to the York Use and liturgical renewal in the fifteenth century. Chapter Six addresses aspects of the liturgical identity of the chapel using the York Antiphonal. Chapter Seven concludes the history of the chapel and considers the community and dissolution of the chapel in the sixteenth century.
The role of libraries and librarians in supporting researchers is changing due to an evolving research environment. Changes in the scholarly communications landscape and in researcher skills development, as well as the emphasis placed on using bibliometrics to evaluate academic performance, have shifted the focus in many academic libraries, encouraging them to re-think how best to support their institutional research strategy. The challenge is understanding the needs of researchers and ensuring that research support librarians have the right skills to respond to these needs.
Expansion in numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development, equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Are the new generation of researchers therefore more suited to support the needs of other researchers than they have been previously, and can they offer a different, but complementary, skill-set and perspective, to library school graduates without research experience? The peer-level support offered by library staff with research backgrounds, who can demonstrate a shared experience, understanding, and a personal enthusiasm for research, arguably has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy.
This paper surveys and discusses the changes in the skill-set, qualifications, and professional experience, of research support staff employed at Leeds University Library, and other UK research libraries. It explores whether the changes in library research support services and the development of specialist library teams has resulted in the recruitment of staff with different professional backgrounds, including researchers themselves.
This paper will address the nature of the special relationship between the archbishops of York and the community of their collegiate chapel, in particular the role of the chapel’s sacrist who was responsible for its finances and management. This relationship is considered from two main chronological periods: firstly, the foundation of the chapel by Roger in the twelfth century, as an archiepiscopal sacred space for his own clerks, distinct and yet connected to the minster, communally and liturgically. Secondly, the paper will briefly discuss how the twelfth-century institutional identity of the community is reflected in the fifteenth century, in terms of patronage and the preferment of the archbishops’ clerks and kinsman and as a career route into the more valuable prebends within the cathedral church.
This paper explores the site of the church at Wensley as a focus of secular patronage for the local elite and their commemoration throughout its history, alongside the idea of the ritual power of place. The evidence for Wensley’s status as an early medieval monastic foundation and its development into a large parish church, which became the ritual focus of the late medieval estate of the Lords of Bolton, will be examined. In particular the location of the church and the appropriation of the River Ure and its crossing at Wensley will be discussed. By examining the deliberate preservation of ritual continuity at Wensley we can consider the potential significance of the site to its later medieval inheritors and why it continued to attract the patronage and ritual acts of local secular lords.
Such ‘personal’ prayer books were intended to be used publicly and to be seen by others, and were symbols of status, wealth and aspiration, as well as expressions of personal piety. This paper discusses the context of MS 16 within the collection of Books of Hours at the Brotherton Library, in order to consider the genre of these manuscripts and their modern uses. Under the theme of book ownership, both medieval and modern, this paper seeks to address the history of the book’s provenance and use, by examining its marks of personalisation, and the ways in which the prayer book represents aspects of the owner’s social and religious identity.
Read my full blog review of the conference at https://leedsunilibrary.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/sustainable-knowledge-and-the-power-of-libraries-liber-annual-conference-university-of-patras-july-2017/