My name is Christina Kamposiori and I am the new RLUK Programme Officer. In this post, I would like to introduce myself and share a few things about my background and research interests.
I have recently submitted my PhD thesis on the information behaviour of art historians which I conducted at the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities. More specifically, as part of my thesis, I looked at the way scholars in art history build their personal research collections. I was especially interested in the way this group of scholars gather, organise, use and manage information in the context of their research and teaching as well as the tools they use and the needs they have when conducting such practices. The ultimate purpose of the research was to understand practice in the field, identify user requirements and draw implications for resource design.
My interest in the information practices and scholarly habits of researchers stems from my involvement in the European infrastructure project ‘Dariah’, in the context of which I had the chance to conduct my MA dissertation, supported by the Digital Curation Unit-IMIS, Athena Research Centre in Athens Greece.
Apart from these projects, I have been involved in other initiatives, such as the AHRC-funded project ‘New Media, Audiences and Affective Experiences’ and the Decoding Digital Humanities London event series, while I also worked at UCL as a research and teaching assistant. My other academic qualifications include a BA in Archaeology and Art History and an MA in Cultural Heritage Management.
Having worked in projects which often had academics and researchers as their main focus allowed me not only to gain a unique insight of the scholarly workflow, but also to develop a better understanding of issues concerning digital and physical collections, access to information and scholarly communication. Joining RLUK constitutes a great opportunity for me to learn more about these issues, collaborate with knowledgeable people and work towards strengthening libraries and ‘powering scholarship’.
