Alumni
Alumni spotlight sscanlon
Alumni e-newsletter - Winter edition
Alumni Spotlight: Seamus Scanlon
Librarian and assistant professor at the City College of New York's Centre for Worker Education, Seamus Scanlon, is also a University of West London alum from the class of 2005. A prestigious career already preceded his postgraduate studies at University of West London in Information Management.
Recently Seamus was one of ten librarians awarded the I Love My Librarian award sponsored by the Times and Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the American Library Association. The award celebrates librarians who have had a significant impact on their communities or schools and recognises their outstanding achievements in improving the lives of the people they serve.
Here Seamus gives us a small insight into his career and studies leading up to last year's award.
My first professional library job was in the University of Cambridge, a fortuitous and notable one since it is the premier academic library system in the world and I did not have a library qualification!
So with the impressive title of Library Officer I entered the bastion of Cambridge University to work in the Scientific Periodicals Library (SPL) in Bene't Street based in part on my science and research background and in part, I hoped, on my longstanding interest in working in academic libraries.
As a student at the National University of Ireland, Galway (then University College Galway) I was impressed by the books, journals and abstracting services available to us to pursue research projects and how these resources were organized and cataloged. (A born librarian surely?)
When I was in the SPL for a while someone gave me a prospectus about a part-time library programme at University of West London with one full day at the campus in Ealing. Dr Ratcliffe, of the University Library, and Ann Stowe, my boss at the SPL, were quick to grant me permission to attend.
So every Wednesday night I caught the train from Cambridge to London – made my way to Ealing, to a rather basic B&B run by an elderly Irish woman who slept in the kitchen on a foldaway bed when it was busy. It was often full of builders and tradesmen - long term Irish emigrants living in other parts of the UK who were doing jobs in west London for a limited time before going back to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry and other cities. I left early on Thursday mornings from the B&B to walk to the Ealing site, West London campus on St Mary's Road.
The students in the library course were almost all working librarians in the public library system whose tuition was paid by their employers. I paid my own tuition but it was modest and value for money. We worked diligently as did the teachers who were accomplished professionals with great dedication and experience. Despite the growing pains of University of West London at the time they were resolute in demanding high standards from themselves and us. The course modules meant you were doing practical projects on topics like database design, business resources, conflict resolution, and thesaurus construction among others.
Dr Tony Olden had a formidable intellect and was dogged in pushing us towards achieving the highest level of scrutiny and analysis. His academic pursuits had a humanitarian emphasis through his work on libraries in developing countries. Dr Stephen Roberts always appeared relaxed and never exasperated by hearing the same thesis proposals from students over and over again until he guided you into a suitable topic. The library staff were very accommodating to our research needs and always gave us extra attention when they knew we were pursuing the library course.
By the time I completed the course I had my library qualification in my hand and it helped me secure jobs in Southampton, Belfast, Galway and New York. When I was nominated for a 2009 Carnegie award, the review committee had to check the standing of my University of West London qualification (had to be an ALA approved qualification to be considered) and the word that came back was that the University of West London qualification was not only ALA approved but was highly regarded in the US. This good news I relayed to Tony Olden and Stephen Roberts after the award was announced.
Alumni Spotlight: Seamus Scanlon
Librarian and assistant professor at the City College of New York's Centre for Worker Education, Seamus Scanlon, is also a University of West London alum from the class of 2005. A prestigious career already preceded his postgraduate studies at University of West London in Information Management.
Recently Seamus was one of ten librarians awarded the I Love My Librarian award sponsored by the Times and Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the American Library Association. The award celebrates librarians who have had a significant impact on their communities or schools and recognises their outstanding achievements in improving the lives of the people they serve.
Here Seamus gives us a small insight into his career and studies leading up to last year's award.
My first professional library job was in the University of Cambridge, a fortuitous and notable one since it is the premier academic library system in the world and I did not have a library qualification!
So with the impressive title of Library Officer I entered the bastion of Cambridge University to work in the Scientific Periodicals Library (SPL) in Bene't Street based in part on my science and research background and in part, I hoped, on my longstanding interest in working in academic libraries.
As a student at the National University of Ireland, Galway (then University College Galway) I was impressed by the books, journals and abstracting services available to us to pursue research projects and how these resources were organized and cataloged. (A born librarian surely?)
When I was in the SPL for a while someone gave me a prospectus about a part-time library programme at University of West London with one full day at the campus in Ealing. Dr Ratcliffe, of the University Library, and Ann Stowe, my boss at the SPL, were quick to grant me permission to attend.
So every Wednesday night I caught the train from Cambridge to London – made my way to Ealing, to a rather basic B&B run by an elderly Irish woman who slept in the kitchen on a foldaway bed when it was busy. It was often full of builders and tradesmen - long term Irish emigrants living in other parts of the UK who were doing jobs in west London for a limited time before going back to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry and other cities. I left early on Thursday mornings from the B&B to walk to the Ealing site, West London campus on St Mary's Road.
The students in the library course were almost all working librarians in the public library system whose tuition was paid by their employers. I paid my own tuition but it was modest and value for money. We worked diligently as did the teachers who were accomplished professionals with great dedication and experience. Despite the growing pains of University of West London at the time they were resolute in demanding high standards from themselves and us. The course modules meant you were doing practical projects on topics like database design, business resources, conflict resolution, and thesaurus construction among others.
Dr Tony Olden had a formidable intellect and was dogged in pushing us towards achieving the highest level of scrutiny and analysis. His academic pursuits had a humanitarian emphasis through his work on libraries in developing countries. Dr Stephen Roberts always appeared relaxed and never exasperated by hearing the same thesis proposals from students over and over again until he guided you into a suitable topic. The library staff were very accommodating to our research needs and always gave us extra attention when they knew we were pursuing the library course.
By the time I completed the course I had my library qualification in my hand and it helped me secure jobs in Southampton, Belfast, Galway and New York. When I was nominated for a 2009 Carnegie award, the review committee had to check the standing of my University of West London qualification (had to be an ALA approved qualification to be considered) and the word that came back was that the University of West London qualification was not only ALA approved but was highly regarded in the US. This good news I relayed to Tony Olden and Stephen Roberts after the award was announced.
Seamus Scanlon with his award
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