RLUK is pleased to announce the election of Robin Green (Warwick) as Vice-Chair, and Diane Bruxvoort (Aberdeen) and John Scally (National Library of Scotland) to its Board of Directors.

Robin Green was elected to the RLUK Board in March 2016, and is currently Librarian at the University of Warwick. A focus throughout his career has been on collaboration and collaborative services: he was Director of RLUK (in its former guise as CURL) from 2005-2007, member of OCLC’s Global Council from 2007-2013 and Chair of the EMEA Regional Council in 2012. He is currently a member of SCONUL’s Collaboration Strategy Group and an officer of the new Mercian Collaboration of academic libraries in the Midlands. He will succeed to the role of Chair in March 2019, following his two year term as Vice-Chair.

Diane Bruxvoort is currently University Librarian & Director at the University of Aberdeen. She serves as the chair of the Grampian Information Network, the vice-chair of the Scottish Confederation of University Research Libraries (SCURL) and is on the Collaboration Committee of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL). Her previous administrative roles include the University of Florida and the University of Houston, large research universities in the United States. Diane is interested in the library as third place, collaborative collection development, and the changing role of libraries in supporting the university research community.

John Scally is the National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of Scotland, a major European research library and one of the world’s leading centres for the study of Scotland and the Scots. He was previously Deputy Head of Rare Books at the Library before becoming Director of University Collections and subsequently Director of Library and University Collections at the University of Edinburgh.  He is a member of the British Library Advisory Council and a Board member of the Scottish Library Information Council.  He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Scally has a number of research interests, including book history, book illustration and early modern history with a particular focus on the 17th and 18th Century. He has published on a number of these topics, including a book on Robert Louis Stevenson’s illustrators, articles and book chapters on the Scottish Parliament before 1707 and the British Civil Wars of the 1640s. He has taught and guest lectured in a number of institutions and was involved in establishing the MSc in the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh. The application of technology to humanities research and teaching is a growing interest. Currrently, the concept of the digital shift in libraries is a particular fascination and something that occasionally keeps him awake at night.

RLUK wishes to thank John MacColl for his dedicated and assured leadership in his two years as Chair.

RLUK’s new Chair, Nicola Wright, said: ‘John has been a wonderful chair who has combined leadership on our national strategic agenda with the development of international collaborations through the formation of IARLA – a network of national research library associations. Following John’s lead, RLUK will continue to work on behalf of our members and the wider HE community, with a commitment towards national and international cooperation in support of research’.