Cultural Heritage

Brian Kelly

My name is Brian Kelly and my job title is UK Web Focus.  As you might gather from this title, my main area of interest is the Web – which, for the past few years, has related to Web 2.0 technologies (such as blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.) and approaches (e.g. a culture of openness).

I have been involved in Web development since January 1993, when I helped to established a Web service at the University of Leeds – probably the first institutional Web service in a UK university (at that time there were only 50 organisations around the world which had registered their Web site). I have been employed at UKOLN since November 1996 and my responsibilities include monitoring developments and innovations on the Web and promoting and embedding best practice.

Over the past few years much of the emphasis of the work has focussed on supporting the cultural heritage sector.  I have established and delivered a series of workshops which have provided advice for staff in museums, libraries and archives on ways in which the Social Web can be used to enhance the services they provide.  I am also one of the main authors of UKOLN’s IntroByte series of documents.

In December 2007 I was awarded the Information World Review’s prize for the Information Professional of the Year.  In addition my main UK Web Focus blog was awarded a prize by UCISA for its effectiveness in communicating with users.

I am team leader of UKOLN’s Communication and Outreach team and, together with a number of my colleagues, am looking forward to using this blog as a way of further extending our links with the cultural heritage sector.