RLUK

Date: 01 July 2001
Dr Thomas Graham to become CURL Chairman

The CURL Board is delighted to announce that Dr Thomas Graham, University Librarian at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, will become the CURL Chairman with effect from July 1. This follows the imminent departure of Dr Clive Field, currently Director of Information Services at the University of Birmingham and CURL Chairman, to the post of Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library.

Dr Graham says "I am delighted to be taking up the chairmanship of CURL at this time of change for research libraries. The consortium is now building on its existing collaborative work by deepening its activities in a number of key areas for the support of research and learning, and doing so in ways which aim to benefit higher education libraries as a whole. I am privileged to be able to help steer these developments over the next two years."

Before taking up his appointment at Newcastle, Dr Graham has held the same post at the University of York (1984-1997). Prior to this, he worked at the universities of Hull, Aberdeen and Glasgow.

He was Chairman of the Standing Conference of National and University Libraries from 1992 to 1994, and is currently Chairman of its Advisory Committee on Scholarly Communications. He was also a member of the Funding Councils’ Libraries Review Group (1992-93), which produced the Follett Report (1993). Dr Graham has served on taskforces within CURL and is currently Chairman of the JISC’s Journals Working Group and the JISC Scholarly Communication Group. His professional interests in library management include the strategic development of library and information services, scholarly communication and the support of research, the integration of information support with teaching, learning and research, and library finance.

This range of expertise, particularly at national level, will stand CURL in excellent stead in facing the challenges of the current information environment.