Congratulations to Andrew Prescott

All our good wishes go to Dr. Andrew Prescott (pictured left), currently Manager of Library Services at University of Wales Lampeter.

Andrew has been appointed to the post of Director of Research at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow. He will be starting in his new post at Glasgow on 11 January 2010.

Andrew has been a committed and energetic member of WHELF and will be much missed. He brought a great depth of scholarship to WHELF, together with lots of ideas for technical innovations. We wish him well in his new post.

University of Wales Virtual Academic Library

Leigh Abbott, from the University of Wales, will go on maternity leave from the end of November 2009. Bronwen Blatchford will be covering for Leigh as part-time Librarian for the University of Wales Virtual Academic Library (UWVAL). Bronwen has previously worked for the Welsh Development Agency and Deloitte but has left her management consultancy days behind her and is now pursuing a career in libraries. Bronwen is a former Aberystwyth University Graduate Library Trainee and worked with Swansea University on their RFID tagging project last year. She is currently studying for a part-time MSc in Information Science and is excited to be undertaking her first professional library position.

Librarian honoured by National Eisteddfod

The National Librarian (and Chair of WHELF), Andrew Green, was among those honoured by the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod. He was honoured with the white bardic robes, the highest honour bestowed, for his contribution to the nation, its language and culture. 

According to Andrew Green,  ‘This is a great honour, and so unexpected – one of the biggest honours for anyone living in Wales. But this is mainly an acknowledgement for The National Library of Wales, how the institution has grown in the last few years, as an important resource for Wales and the world, as innovators in our field of work and as a national institution that Wales can be proud of.’

Read more on the National Library of Wales news pages

Awards for Excellence

Congratulations to Cathie Jackson, Senior Consultant – Information Literacy in Information Services at Cardiff University, who has been awarded a  prize for Excellence in Teaching by the HEA Subject Centre for Information and Computer Science. This is Cathie’s second award – last summer she was presented with the Wallace Breem Memorial Award for an outstanding contribution to law librarianship.