After ten years at the University of St Andrews Library, latterly as the Deputy Director, Jeremy Upton will be moving to the University of Edinburgh to take up the post of Director of Library and University Collections from the start of April. Jeremy is chair of the SCOPNet Steering Group, the body responsible for procurement activity for the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) and is on the SHEDL Steering Group. Jeremy started his professional career at the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College as a music specialist before moving to the Music Library at the University of Edinburgh, where he was in charge of their bibliographic services team.

At the end of October last year, Peter Morgan retired as Head of Medical and Science Libraries at the University of Cambridge. Peter’s career in academic library and information services spanned nearly 40 years and was focused in the areas of biomedical research, medical education and healthcare practice. Peter spent most of his career in Cambridge. He was a member of the Senior Management Team at Cambridge University Library, where he directed the project that established DSpace@Cambridge as the University’s institutional repository. He led Jisc-funded repository-based projects associated with chemistry research data and open bibliographic data, and had an active role in the areas of open access (OA) and repository policies. Peter was a member of the Research Information Network’s Consultative Group on Librarianship & Information Science and of the SHERPA Management Group, and worked for the British Council as a consultant in Pakistan and Kuwait, as well as serving on the editorial boards of Health Libraries Review and New Review of Academic Librarianship. His active commitment to professional organizations included periods of office in the Library Association’s Medical, Health & Welfare Group (now HLG), the NHS Regional Librarians Group, the University Medical School Librarians Group, of which he was the founding chairman, and the European Association for Health Information & Libraries, of which he is currently Past President.

At the end of December, Anne Aldridge retired from Goldsmiths, University of London as Assistant Librarian Serials/ILL. Anne had been at Goldsmiths since 1978 and for most of this time was involved in Periodicals and Acquisitions.

Stuart Dempster joined Imperial College London in January as Team Leader, Information Resources. He has previously worked at the BBC, Jisc, The Wellcome Library and United Business and Media. Stuart leads the team responsible for acquisitions, subscriptions and document delivery that underpin the delivery of information resources (analogue and digital) at the Library. He works in partnership with the Open Access Team and Research Office colleagues to support OA publishing and scholarly communication systems. He previously contributed towards the developing of shared national infrastructure projects whilst at Jisc, such as the BUFVC ‘Box of Broadcasts’ and the ‘Research and Education Space’ pilot. He has extensive experience in emergent business models, licensing, rights management and IP, having developed a significant evidence base whilst leading the Strategic Content Alliance. He has a keen interest in the development of the Digital Public Space and new OA business models.

In December, Ruth Cooper retired as Team Leader for Acquisitions and Access after 34 years working in various roles in the library at Imperial.

Lawrence Jones has been appointed Jisc Collections Services Manager where he is responsible for ensuring that Jisc Collections licensing and negotiation activities provide quality of service to academia, and that the consortium operates as effectively and efficiently as possible. Lawrence has over 10 years of experience in higher education libraries, and joined Jisc Collections from St George’s, University of London, where he was the Library’s Content & Digital Infrastructure Manager. In this role he was responsible for managing and developing the Library’s print and electronic collections, negotiating licences with publishers and vendors, managing the resources budget, developing the institutional repository, overseeing OA article processing charge (APC) payments, and project managing improvements in how the Library provided access to its digital content. Prior to St George’s, Lawrence worked for several years at the Imperial College London Library.

In October, Michael Stringer joined the Library Services at London Metropolitan University as Head of Library Resources & E-Strategy Development. For the previous 11 years, Michael worked at the British Library in a number of roles. Most recently he had managed the Science Reference Team, Arts & Humanities Teams and the News Reference Team, as well as having responsibility for collection management for arts and humanities materials (print and electronic). Michael’s professional interests include information literacy, and he is a member of the CPD25 Task Group on Quality Standards & Legal Frameworks.

At the University of Nottingham, Alison McNab, a research support librarian in the University Library services, has joined the Centre for Research Communications (CRC) at the University in a part-time and temporary role as Research Community Engagement Officer. HEFCE has commissioned the CRC to develop a new service to support authors and institutions in meeting the OA requirements of a future Research Excellence Framework (REF). The SHERPA/REF service is building on the current portfolio of SHERPA services (RoMEO, JULIET and FACT), and Alison will be providing communications and social media support during the development stage.

The University of Oxford Bodleian Libraries announced two key appointments late last year. Catríona Cannon was appointed as the Libraries’ new Deputy Librarian and started this role at the beginning of December. Catríona had been interim Deputy Librarian for the past 14 months, acting up from her role as Associate Director for Collections Support which she had held since 2010.

Lucie Burgess was appointed the new Associate Director for Digital Libraries. Lucie joined the Libraries in early November from her previous role as Head of Online Services at the British Library, and is responsible for the leadership of the Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services (BDLSS) team.

At the University of Stirling, Kathy McCabe became University Librarian and Director of Information Services at the end of December. A graduate of Stirling, Kathy joined the University in 1990 and has served in a number of technical, development and programme and change management roles within Information Services, being Head of Business Systems before becoming Acting Director of Information Services last year. Kathy recently worked with the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to introduce and establish sector wide the Aurora programme to develop women leaders in higher education.

At St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Christine Jordan has been promoted to Senior Library Assistant responsible for managing the reception and circulation desk areas in the new Library building. This Library, which opened in February, is over four floors, has study space aplenty and is full of light and colour, not to mention providing some great views of Dublin. Christine now manages a team of four to five staff and administers short loans and inter-library loans inter alia. Christine had previously looked after serials at St Patrick’s since 2009.

There have been a number of changes at Yorkshire universities. In October last year, Briony Heyhoe-Pullar left her role as Acquisitions Manager at the University of Huddersfield to become director of All My Systems, an information systems consultancy business providing a fusion of socio-technical and agile based information systems consulting. Briony remains on the National Acquisitions Group committee in 2015.

In the run up to Christmas, Amy Devenney was appointed to the post of Acquisitions Manager. Previously Amy worked as a research assistant on the Jisc Hike Project. In addition to the day job, Amy is a medieval historian and is working on her PhD, Miracles and Medicine in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, at the University of Leeds.

Elly Cope has joined Leeds Beckett University as Content Delivery Manager, from the University of Bath. She will be focusing on making data sharing across different resource platforms as integrated and interoperable as possible, ensuring learning resources are intuitive to access and use. Following a major stock review, Elly will be working with Eric Jackson, Collections & Acquisitions Manager, to integrate new suppliers and workflows into stock acquisition and processing, including delivery of shelf-ready AV material and expanded e-book provision.

Following the retirement of long-serving postholder Sharon Lee in summer 2014, Jacqueline Hope has joined the Resource Acquisitions Team at the University of Leeds as the new Acquisitions Coordinator, where one of her primary focuses will be on consolidating and enhancing the processes associated with reading list management. Prior to her new appointment, Jacqueline had worked as a Faculty Team Assistant at Leeds, providing administrative support to the Faculty Team Librarians, and managing much of the creation of and liaison related to reading list processes. Most recently, following a Library-wide reconfiguration earlier in 2014, Jacqueline had been working with the new Learning Services Team, providing support in the provision of academic and information literacy skills to library customers.

At the end of January, John Wickenden retired from Eli Lilly and Co after over 46 years with the company. John worked at Lilly’s research site in Windlesham, Surrey, where most of the time he was a one-person Librarian providing both Library and Information services to the research staff. In 2000, he became a Biomedical Information Scientist and part of Lilly’s global Library and Information Team, more recently concentrating on competitive intelligence. In the 1990s, John attended a number of UKSG conferences. He became a Fellow of CILIP in 2009.

In January, Finbar Galligan was appointed Library Marketing Manager, EMEA at the American Chemical Society. After working in marketing at Wiley and Elsevier, Fin joined Swets in 2012, where he was Marketing Communications Team Leader.

Last December, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) appointed Pippa Smart as Editor of their journal Learned Publishing. Pippa had provided interim support since Alan Singleton stepped down in October in addition to her role as Book Reviews Editor. Pippa has over 20 years’ experience in research publishing and provides a range of services to publishers and editors, including training and consultancy. She has held senior roles at INASP, Blackwell and CABI and is a Council member for the European Association of Science Editors.

In December, Yann Amouroux joined Bioscientifica, the commercial subsidiary of the Society for Endocrinology, as Head of Sales. Yann, who currently represents publishers and publishing on the UKSG Main Committee, was previously Regional Sales Manager at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

There have been a number of changes at Dawson Books. In November last year, Connect Books (the parent group of Dawson Books) welcomed Justin Adams as its new Managing Director. Justin has been running consumer-facing businesses for over 16 years, having worked in senior positions in diverse businesses such as ICI, Diageo and Maxxium Worldwide, and most recently as a main board director of Greene King plc and CEO of SealSkinz.

Jane Johnson, who was appointed Head of Dawson Books last July, reports directly to Justin. Jane, who leads both Dawson Books and Bertram Library Services (the public library division of the Connect Books group), was previously Head of UK Library Sales at Dawson. She joined the company in 2013, having worked at Blackwell’s for more than 20 years in a variety of management roles including customer services, business support, sales and project management.

Sally Barber, who joined Dawson in 1991, is now Head of UK Library Sales. Sally reports to Jane Johnson, and is a member of the operating board under new MD of Connect Books Group, Justin Adams.

Also in January, Heather Sherman moved to the newly created role of Head of Library Programme Management within Dawson Books. Heather has worked at Dawson Books for nine years, and before that was Systems and Applications Manager at the University of Hertfordshire. A Chartered Librarian, Heather is on the UKSG Education Sub-committee, BIC Library Committee and the e4libraries Task Force and was previously on the NAG committee, having served two years as chair.

In January, Darren Gillgrass joined the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) as Director, Product Management, Rightsholder Products and Services, where he leads a team building next-generation cloud licensing and commerce solutions for CCC’s rightsholder market. Darren founded DMG Healthcare Consulting Limited, a publishing consultancy specializing in product development, product management, positioning and portfolio development for scientific, technical and medical publishing companies, healthcare organizations and authors. Previously, Darren was Managing Director at Informa Healthcare Communications and Custom Publishing Group and before that, General Manager and Sales and Marketing Director at Wolters Kluwer Health.

In January, Deniz Can Kurt joined De Gruyter as EMEA Sales Manager. He is responsible there for key trade and library accounts in the Middle East, Africa and Scandinavia. For the previous five years, Deniz was at Swets, initially working in Client Services before becoming Sales Manager Middle East and developing the company’s customer base across the Middle East and North Africa.

Hannah Baldwin (née Perrett) joined the IET as Head of Marketing in November 2014. Hannah moved to the IET after 18 months as Head of Publishing for IT Governance Ltd. Prior to this, she spent seven years at Cambridge University Press, looking after the digital academic book and database portfolio as Digital Director, having started her publishing career in marketing at ProQuest.

EBSCO has appointed Tony Zanders as Vice President of Global Customer Development. Tony is an entrepreneur and education technology specialist in EBSCO’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) group. In his current role, he serves as a strategic consultant to a wide spectrum of EBSCO customers to help optimise their libraries’ full suite of software services. Tony has a strong technology background. Prior to joining EBSCO, he advocated for cloud-based technology adoption among colleges and universities, was Director of Customer Development at Ex Libris North America, and founded Applyful.com, a college discovery and research management platform – winning the 2013 College Knowledge Challenge, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for its development. Most recently, Tony served as Head of Communications and Outreach at 4.0 Schools.

In January, Elizabeth Just was appointed Business Development Manager at Publisher Promotion & Fulfillment, part of the Publishing and Digital Media group of EBSCO Industries Inc, where Elizabeth is responsible for identifying opportunities related to the outsourcing of order fulfilment, distribution, customer service and marketing for publishers. Elizabeth previously worked for Turpin Distribution Services as Vice President of North American Operations, and, more recently, as North American Business Development Manager for Swets Information Services, focusing on product and service development and overall business growth.

At ProQuest, Kristi Marchbanks is now Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience, where she leads the development and execution of innovative go-to-market strategies across the ProQuest enterprise. Kristi joined ProQuest after spending more than 15 years leading marketing, sales and customer experience at various organizations, including GrowLife E-Commerce, Corbis and SeaBright Holdings. At Amazon.com, she was Business Unit Executive and created the company’s first business-to-business strategy. She was also CEO of SeaTab Software, a business intelligence company.

Lynne Miller joined TBI in January as Associate Director, Client Services. Lynne previously held the post of Associate Director, Society Engagement at Wiley. She joins the TBI Executive Team, led by Melinda Kenneway.

In December, Janet Broome joined Wiley as Senior Sales Account Manager responsible for the Healthcare market for Wiley UK and Ireland, focusing on new business development of premium healthcare content to the NHS, Medical Schools and Nursing Schools. Janet will be best known in the healthcare library world through her work at Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate and Ovid Technologies, and before that, in the library LMS world as Strategic Accounts and Product Manager at SirisiDynix.

Coda – another retirement to announce is my own, which is due formally at the end of February – with a final hurrah at UKSG in Glasgow. This brings to a close my association with UKSG’s People page, which goes back to 1990, when, following the acquisition by Swets of the business and some staff of the now forgotten subscription agent Bailey Bros & Swinfen, Albert Prior, then Swets UK’s MD and UKSG luminary, invited me to edit the People page for Serials. And so it has continued for 25 years! What a privilege it has been to be able to contact pretty much anyone in our knowledge community for news of their moves, plans and views of the sector. My profound thanks to the UKSG community: to all those who have so willingly shared their own news in this page, to those who have told me about others on the move, those who read it, and of course to beloved Swets and latterly, most gracious EBSCO for giving me the time to write the page. Huge thanks to the UKSG Insights Co-Editors, Lorraine Estelle and Steve Sharp, their predecessors and members of the publications board for their support and encouragement down the years. I am especially grateful to Ally Souster, whose friendship, advice, editing, Photoshop and publishing skills pull the People page into shape. And so, as a calf released from its stall, I go forth skipping into pastures new! With best wishes to all in this most fascinating sector – John Jardine