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Richard Cross

Richard Cross

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Libraries and Learning Resources

Role

Richard Cross leads the University library's Resource Discovery and Innovation Team, and is a member of the Management Team of NTU Library. His team is responsible for a range of metadata description and discovery services, all focused on making library resources easily discoverable by students and academics. He currently acts as lead technical expert for Library OneSearch, SFX and IRep, and is responsible for developing integrations between library discovery applications and other University services.

Career overview

Richard joined the Library and Information Services of Nottingham Trent University in September 1996, working in a variety of frontline service roles. After serving a Project Officer in electronic resource development, he became an eServices Manager in Libraries and Learning Resources in 2005. He took up his current role, as Resource Discovery and Innovation Team Manager, in 2010.

Research areas

Since completing his PhD in 2003, Richard has continued to research in the subject area of his doctoral research and has authored a range of publications on the history of the American, British and European left. Between 2009 and 2013 he was co-editor of: Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history.

External activity

In 2014, Richard joined the Library Advisory Council of Oxford University Press.

He was the Chair of the Ex Libris User Group - United Kingdom and Ireland (EPUG-UKI) between 2010 and 2012. Before that he was joint chair of the SFX and MetaLib group of EPUG-UKI between 2008 and 2010.

In 2009, Richard was one of the founder organisers of the Talis Aspire User Group (TAUG), and organised the 2013 TAUG conference held at the Nottingham Conference Centre. He organised the 2012 UK RefWorks User Group meeting; and co-convened the TAUG component of the Talis Insight 2015 event.

Between 2007 and 2010, Richard was the Deputy Coordinator of the Verde Product Working Group of the International Group of Ex Libris Users.

Sponsors and collaborators

Whilst at Nottingham Trent University, Richard has worked on a number of JISC-funded projects. He has also provided consultancy software training for Ex Libris. He has worked in a variety of capacities within user group communities for Talis Aspire, Ex Libris and RefWorks. Several extensions to library software applications developed by Richard are in use at a number of universities in the UK and beyond.

Publications

Recent conference presentations and reports include:

  • CROSS, R. 2015. Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data. Talis Insight, Birmingham, 16 April.
  • CROSS, R. 2014. If it is broke, do fix it: tracking suspect links in SFX with LinkDoubt. EPUG-UKI Conference, London, 13 October.
  • CROSS, R. 2014. Simpler, faster and more transparent: improving repository submission with PubSub. IGeLU Conference, Oxford, 16 September.
  • CROSS, R. 2014. Scratch, stitch, slurp and scrap: the challenges of managing electronic resource records, Oxford University Press Library Advisory Council, Oxford, Oxford, 4 June.
  • CROSS, R. and PYLE, J., 2014. Fast, autonomous and verifiable: piloting a new method for gathering library usage statistics independently from the resource provider, UKSG Conference, Harrogate, 14-15 April.
  • CROSS, R., 2013. Primo at Nottingham Trent University, UKSG Forum, London, 14 November.
  • CROSS, R., 2013. Linking checking, the 404 problem (and the other 403), Talis Aspire User Group, Nottingham Conference Centre, 25-26 June.
  • CROSS, R., 2013. Delivering a resource list service for your university, CPD25, M25 Academic Libraries Consortium event Reading Lists: Challenge or Opportunity, London, 17 January.
  • CROSS, R., 2012. Resource lists and eResources – discovery and management challenges, UKSG Conference, Glasgow, 27-28 March.
  • CROSS, R., 2011. Patron Driven Acquisition at Nottingham Trent University, EMALink session on PDA, Nottingham Trent University, 14 December.
  • CROSS, R., 2012. Writing custom SFX target parsers, EPUG-UKI Conference, British Library Conference Centre, London, 15-16 October.
  • CROSS, R., 2011. EPUG-UKI Conference 2011 - Relic, CatNip, SlyFox and other widgets: Simple library mash-ups using Ex Libris' application web services, EPUG-UKI Conference, British Library Conference Centre, London, 10-11 October.
  • CROSS, R., 2011. 'EPUG-UKI shares expertise and enthusiasm', ExLibrian Newsletter, February.
  • CROSS, R., 2010. Resource Lists and the Ex Libris application suite, EPUG-UKI Conference, British Library Conference Centre London, 1-2 November.
  • CROSS, R., 2010. 'The Librarian's Tale'. ExLibrian Newsletter, 13, August.
  • CROSS, R. and ADEY, H., 2010. From Green to Red: Managing Verde as the signals change, IGeLU conference, Helsinki, 6-9 September.
  • LOWRY, F. and CROSS, R., 2009. Shibboleth: the library experience, Federation Access Management, FAM09, Cardiff, 23 November.
  • CROSS, R., 2009. Working as a MetaLib tester and a Verde implementation partner, Expania conference, University of Navarra, Spain, 18-19 June.
  • CROSS, R., 2008. Collaborative customer testing of MetaLib 4.0, IGeLU Conference, Madrid, 8-10 September.
  • CROSS, R., 2007. Integrating e-textbooks into the VLE: overcoming the challenges, JISC Collections Workshop: Promoting and Embedding E-textbooks, London, 14 September.
  • CROSS, R., 2007. Implementing Verde, IGeLU Conference, Brno, 3-5 September.

See all of Richard Cross's publications...