About the authors
Professor David Baker MA, MMus, MLS, PhD, MBA, FCILIP, FCMI, FRCO, FRSA was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1952. His first love was the church organ, which he began playing from the age of 12. By the time he was 16, he was an Associate of the Royal College of Organists. He gained his Fellowship the following year. In 1970 he was elected Organ Scholar of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating with a First Class Honours degree in Music three years later. He took an MMus degree from King’s College, London in 1974. He then moved into Library and Information Services, taking a Master of Library Studies degree in 1976 and a PhD in 1988. Both of these degrees were from Loughborough University. In recent years, his particular professional interest has been in the strategic management of technology. He gained an MBA degree from the Open University in this subject area in 2002. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
After a number of library posts at Nottingham, Leicester and Hull Universities and a lecturing role at Loughborough, he became Chief Librarian of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, in 1985. He was promoted to Director of Information Strategy and Services in 1995, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor in 1997. He became Principal of University College Plymouth St Mark & St John (UCP Marjon) in July 2003 and, in addition, was appointed Professor of Strategic Information Management there in July 2006. He retired as Principal of UCP Marjon in August 2009. During his time as Principal he led the College through the process of gaining its own degree-awarding powers and the awarding of university college status. He was also Chair of Universities South West, comprising the 13 higher education institutions in the region, and of GuildHE, the representative body for smaller and more specialist universities. He is currently Deputy Chair of the Joint Information Systems Committee, responsible (with a £100 million budget) for the provision of information technology infrastructure, content and services to the whole of UK higher and further education.
Professor Baker has published some 16 monographs and 100 scholarly articles. His most recent books concern: strategic technology management, strategic change management, digital economics and libraries and social responsibility. He has led a number of large technology-based projects in UK higher education, both in relation to digital and hybrid library development and content creation for teaching and learning. He has also been active in major national projects in the field of human resources, often with special reference to strategic technology management. He has spoken at numerous UK and international conferences, has led workshops and seminars and has undertaken consultancy work in most countries in the European Union, along with work in North America, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Nigeria and the Sudan.
Dr Bernadette A. Casey BSc, MA, PhD was born in Swansea. After leaving school at 16 and working in the Civil Service, she married at 19 and had a young family by the age of 21. At this time, she decided to pursue her increasing love of learning by undertaking A-levels at evening classes. In 1975, she began an undergraduate degree in sociology and politics at Plymouth Polytechnic, going on to study for an MA at the University of Manchester in 1978/9. This was followed by a PhD, also from the University of Manchester. Her research interests from this time included qualitative methodology, gender issues and cultural/media sociology. Part-time work for the Open University, the Workers Educational Association and local education authority adult education programmes eventually led to a full-time career teaching sociology and media studies in higher education. She taught at Plymouth Polytechnic and University College Plymouth St Mark & St John where she became Head of Media, and by the time of her retirement in December 2008 she was Dean of Culture, Communication and Society. She retained and developed her interest in equality issues by chairing the University College’s Diversity Committee. She has published in both sociology and media studies and is co-author of Television Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2001, 2008).
Dr Casey has been actively and broadly involved in the academic environment for many years as a consultant, reviewer and examiner.