This month saw colleagues gathering from across the NHS, the Universities of Brighton and Sussex, and BSMS to say farewell to Jil Fairclough and wish her a happy retirement. Jil has worked in the team since 1999 and for the last 14 years she has led our medical school library team as Medical School Librarian and Technology-Enhanced Learning Lead.
Jil’s accomplishments in her time in post are too numerous to list in full but they include: embedding information skills teaching into every year of the undergraduate medical curriculum; creating Sabre, our search engine that finds books and journals from across local Higher Education and NHS libraries; leading an extensive programme of work to increase the use of technology in teaching; and advocating for the creation of an open access research fund for the medical school.
The BSMS Library Service has been rated by students as the best academic library service in England on three occasions over the last decade and this is largely thanks to Jil’s dedicated commitment and leadership. Jil’s passion for medical education and for continual improvement are second-to-none and she will leave a lasting impact on the many colleagues she has worked with and friends that she has made during her time at BSMS.
Jil is retiring early in order to focus on writing her first novel and we wish her the very best for the future.
