Skip to main content

Winter Graduation and Honorary Graduate Ciara Eastell

This week from Wednesday 9 - Friday 11 January 2019 winter graduations are taking place for postgraduates. It's a time to celebrate the success of our students as well as the dedication and hard work of colleagues from across the University. Graduands from the Information School will graduate at 12:30 on Friday 11th January.

From those who have taught, supervised and supported our students, to the people working to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes on the day, thank you for the part you have played in helping our students enjoy this special moment with their families and friends.

Attending the ceremonies alongside our students are six prestigious honorary graduates, among them current staff and alumni of the University who have achieved extraordinary things. One honorary graduate is  Ciara Eastell, one of the UK’s leading public librarians.

"I am delighted that Ciara Eastell has been awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctorate of Letters) from the University of Sheffield in recognition of her work supporting the role of libraries in disadvantaged areas", says Professor Peter Bath, Head of the Information School. "Ciara completed her MA in Librarianship in the Information School (then the Department of Information Studies) in 1994 and went on from there to become the first Chief Executive of Libraries Unlimited and President of the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL)."

"She was also Head of Libraries, Culture and Heritage for Devon County Council and in 2017 she was appointed OBE in the New Year’s Honours list in recognition of her national contribution to public libraries."

"The School is very proud that Ciara has been awarded the Honorary Degree by the University.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Raspberry Pi Weather Project now live

A project to create a raspberry pi weather station is currently live in the Information School.  The Sheffield Pi weather station has been created by Romilly Close, undergraduate Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Sheffield.  The project was funded by the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme and is being supervised by Dr Jo Bates, Paula Goodale and Fred Sonnenwald from the Information School. Information about the Sheffield Pi station and how to create your own can be found on the project website .  You can also see live data from the Sheffield Pi station on Plot.ly , and further information can also be found on the Met Office Weather Observations Website .    This work compliments the School’s existing project entitled ‘The Secret Life of a Weather Datum’ which explores socio-cultural influences on weather data.  This project is funded under the AHRC’s Digital Transformations Big Data call.  It aims to pilot a new approach to im

Our Chemoinformatics Group wins Jason Farradane Award

The Information School's Chemoinformatics Research Group has been awarded the 2012 UKeiG Jason Farradane Award , in recognition of its outstanding 40 year contribution to the information field. The prize is awarded to the three current members of the group,  Professor Val Gillet , Dr John Holliday and Professor Peter Willett . The judges recognised the Group's status as one of the world's leading centres of chemoinformatics research, a major contributor to the field of information science, and an exemplar in raising the profile of the information profession. The School has a long association with the Farradane prize. Its second recipient was long time member of staff Professor Mike Lynch in 1980.

Professor Mike Thelwall gives inaugural lecture

Professor of Data Science Mike Thelwall recently gave his inaugural lecture at the University of Sheffield, entitled  How helpful are AI and bibliometrics for assessing the quality of academic research? The lecture, delivered in the University's Diamond building, was introduced by Head of the Information School Professor Briony Birdi. It covered Mike's research into whether Artificial Intelligence can inform - or replace - expert peer review in the journal article publication process and what this could look like, as well as to what extent bibliometrics and citation statistics can play a role in assessing the quality of a piece of research. Mike also discussed whether tools like ChatGPT can accurately detect research quality. The inaugural lecture was well attended by colleagues from around the University.