Senate House Library appoints new Head of Collections

Lucy Evans, Head of Collections, Senate House Library

Lucy takes up the role having joined us in February last year as Special Collections Manager, before taking on the role of Interim Head of Collections just a few weeks later. 

Over the past year Lucy’s achievements have been extremely impressive, leading the University’s Shakespeare First Folio exhibition, the successful bid for funding the 'Diversifying portraiture' project to the Convocation Trust and the installation and launch of the Virtual Reading Room service.  

As well as leading the Collections department and serving as a member of the Library leadership team, Lucy’s focus in the coming months and years will be the Library Transformation Programme, including finalising the collection development policy, e-resource collection development and plans for the Special Collections Centre. Lucy will also be working closely with the Development Office to promote Senate House Library collections to interested parties, as well as reviewing and implementing new programmes of engagement across the Library. 
 
Lucy brings a wealth of experience to the role. Having started her career at the Bodleian Libraries as a graduate trainee, Lucy went on to a role working on the Opie Collection of Children’s Books and has worked in rare books and special collections ever since. Lucy has a broad experience across the country, having worked at Lambeth Palace Library, the University of Reading and the University of Liverpool.  

She joined the British Library as Curator of 18th and 19th century printed books in 2017, during which she curated the first family friendly exhibition, Marvellous and Mischievous: Literature’s Young Rebels, which has recently toured the UK. She was the Secretary to the Panizzi Council, which organises the annual bibliography series, and was involved in creating the digital resource Discovering Children’s Books. She also edited a volume of ghost stories for British Library Publishing and continues to work with them on the Women Writers series. 

Lucy is the Chair of the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group and has been involved in their work since 2011, which has included organising eight residential conferences. Her professional interests are the history of non-conformism, regional printing and cheap print in the 19th century.