Digital Messenger

Debby Shorley, Director of Library Services, retires.

For someone who insists she’s never had a real career plan, Debby Shorley can look back with pride and perhaps a little surprise as she retires as Director of Library Services, with a clutch of professional accolades, publications and modernising campaigns behind her.

Reflecting on a path that has taken her from the heart of 1970s Belfast, torn by civil strife, via Brighton to the dynamic campuses at Imperial, the first thing that Debby notes is that she’s “done everything by mistake”.

“There weren’t many opportunities in mid-70s Belfast for arts graduates, so I went to library school not knowing what else to do. My first professional post was in Belfast Central Library, which at the time was designated a ‘legitimate target’ by the Provisional IRA. I remember us carrying out searches for incendiary devices that might be hidden on the shelves. I subsequently moved to the University of Ulster and stayed there until I became Librarian of the University of Sussex in 2000. I arrived at Imperial in 2007 and I can say in total honesty I’ve loved (almost!) every minute of it. Different universities have different cultures, and the College has a real indefinable but unmistakable buzz about it.”

In a digital age, printed books and libraries are beginning to occupy very different roles, but Debby doesn’t believe that this has altered her own responsibilities – and nor will it reduce demand for the services of librarians.

“I’ve said before that Imperial is likely to have the first bookless library in the UK university sector, although it won’t happen overnight. I think that libraries will always be a focal point, a place where people can study together, and that the information resources we provide, albeit electronically, will still need to be gathered together, organised, disseminated and explained using the skills librarians have.”

A major focus for Debby during her time at the College has been the open access campaign, which ultimately aims to ease the spread of research knowledge. Currently, Imperial pays over £4 million each year for subscriptions to information resources, and access to published research still depends on the finances of individual institutions.

For the best science to be done, in Debby’s view, scientists must have access to as much information as possible, and the current system is far too restrictive. Following the seminal Finch Report, research councils have made it clear that from now on they will expect any research they fund to be made publicly available. However, the future is still extremely uncertain in this area. “I am cautiously optimistic about the prospects for more open access provision over the next five years. In 20 years’ time I think the model will have been turned on its head – I’m not sure quite how, but the landscape will look very different.”

In fact, a campaign led by Imperial has recently secured considerably better deals from the largest commercial publishers for all UK higher education libraries. Debby hopes to remain involved with the open access campaign, which she feels passionately about, but retirement will naturally bring a change of a pace.

She will, however, miss the working environment: “I feel very privileged to have been somewhere with so many talented, impressive colleagues. I love the speed of it all; I have learned a lot and watched some very clever people doing things well – and that’s very inspiring. But I shall appreciate not having to get up at 05.45 in the morning to travel in from Brighton! I intend to spend more time at my house in Burgundy, and I shall enjoy taking the time to do things, like cooking, properly.”

On a final note, Debby addressed the question many across the College have wondered at some point – her unique approach to email composition. “It was born of the fact that I hate typing, and so I got into the habit of doing everything in lower case and without punctuation. But there is also something a little serious there – I believe that emails should be short, and I pride myself on doing things concisely. And when you become known for something, you can’t stop doing it. I can’t start being sensible about it now!”