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  3. Fiona Watkins

  • Fiona is an Academic Librarian working with the School of The Arts and the School of Science and Technology. She is based at Avenue Library.

    Key responsibilities include:

    • Delivering integrated teaching and learning programmes in information and IT skills for students and academic staff
    • Day-to-day management of the materials budget for both Schools
    • Building collections in support of learning, teaching and research activities of the Schools
    • Liaising both formally (via School and Course Boards) and informally with staff of the Schools on learning support issues
    • Promoting Departmental services to students and staff
    • Representing the Department proactively in institutional meetings and liaising as appropriate with other Departments on learning support issues

    Background

    Fiona graduated from Loughborough University with a BA (Hons) in Library and Information Management in 2004 and worked as a freelance Catalogue and Classification Officer at an environmental agency for a few months before joining the library team at The University of Northampton.  She has completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching Higher Education (PGCTHE) through The School of Education, whilst working at The University of Northampton. 

    Prior to graduating Fiona worked in public libraries in South Gloucestershire, focusing specifically on services to children and young people and encouraging reader development.

  • Fiona is a committee member and the web officer for the East Midlands University College and Research group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).  As part of the committee membership she has been involved in organising Members’ days and workshops. 

    Fiona is a leader of the Reading Group project run through Information Services; currently we run reading groups in two local charities and have passed the running of a third over to the charity staff.  From this project the Staff Reading Group was also set up. 

    She also has a personal interest in referencing; the systems used and the manner in which training is given to users of referencing systems.  As part of her PGCTHE Fiona undertook a project to develop a system of referencing that would be more suitable for art students, as part of this research it became apparent that little or no research has been done into the effect that imposing a particular system of referencing has upon student groups, specifically relating to accessibility issues, this is an area she hopes to further investigate. 

  • For publications, projects, datasets, research interests and activities, view Fiona Watkins’s research profile on Pure, the University of Northampton’s Research Explorer.