People

People at the Archive

Director, Mass Observation Project

Prof Dorothy Sheridan, MBE

Dorothy has worked with the Mass Observation Archive since 1974. She has published a number of books based on the material, including Among You Taking Notes: the Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison (Gollancz 1985), Wartime Women: a Mass Observation Anthology (Heinemann 1990, Phoenix press 2009) and Writing Ourselves: Mass Observation and Literacy Practices, (Hampton Press, 2000) with Brian Street and David Bloome. Dorothy directs the current Mass Observation Project

Special Collections manager

Ms Fiona Courage

Fiona is the manager of Special Collections at the University of Sussex Library and curator of the Mass Observation Archive. In 2009 Fiona was awarded a teaching award from the University of Sussex in recognition of her excellent teaching using the Mass Observation Archive.

Mass Oservation Archive assistant

Ms Jessica Scantlebury
Jessica has worked with the Mass Observation Archive since 2006. She is a core member of the Special Collections team in the University of Sussex Library although her post is specifically funded by the MOA Trust to support MOA activities, in particular the contemporary MO Project. She also runs the MOA Friends’ Scheme, manages the MOA JISC email discussion list maintains and updates the MOA website and edits the twice yearly MO Bulletin.

These staff are also involved in caring for the Mass Observation Archive:
Ms Karen Watson (Senior archive assistant) - currently on maternity leave
Ms Rose Lock (Senior archive assistant)
Dr Catrina Hey (Archive assistant)

Trustees

Patron

Lord Briggs
Asa Briggs, the eminent social historian, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sussex, 1967-76, Chancellor of the Open University 1978-94, Provost of Worcester College, 1976-1991 was responsible for the rescue of the Mass Observation papers and their establishment as an archive at the University of Sussex in 1970. Asa was one of the first Archive Trustees in 1974 and is now the Patron of the Archive.

Trustees

Mr Jeremy Crow
Jeremy joined the Trustee board in 2010. He is currently the Head of Literary Estates at the Society of Authors, which acts as the literary representative of the estates of a number of distinguished writers including Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Philip Larkin, E. M. Forster, Rosamond Lehmann, Walter de la Mare, John Masefield and Compton Mackenzie.

Ms Elizabeth Dunn
Elizabeth Dunn studied chemistry at St Hilda's College Oxford before completing a law conversion course and training as a solicitor at the intellectual property specialist irm Rouse Legal. She is now adding to her specialist IP knowledge by training as a trade mark attorney in a well known practice.Elizabeth joined the Trust board in 2008 with, unsurprisingly, a particular remit for the intellectual property aspects of the work of the Trust and is looking forward to contributing to the development of the Archive.

Prof Ruth Finnegan
Ruth Finnegan started as a classicist at Oxford in the 1950s, she moved into social anthropology as a graduate, followed by fieldwork and several years of university teaching in Africa.She joined the academic staff of the Open University in 1969 where she served until her retirement in 1999 and continues as Visiting Research Professor. Ruth has published extensively on the anthropology of communication and expression, including oral performance, literacy, and music-making in Africa, Fiji and Britain, and is especially interested in documenting the lives and stories of so-called ‘ordinary’ people, in researchers outside the university walls, and in ‘hidden’ and amateur activities – all linking into her strong support for MO.

Ms Kitty Inglis
Kitty Inglis studied European History and Spanish at the University of East Anglia (UEA), graduating in 1984. She completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies at University College London in 1986, while working as Periodicals Librarian at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College. Following posts in Bristol and London, Kitty returned to UEA in 1989 as History Subject Librarian and remained there in a variety of different roles until moving to the University of Sussex as Librarian in 2008. As University Librarian, Kitty is Chair of the Mass Observation Archive Trust and is delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to the development of such a significant and prestigious resource.

Dr Claire Langhamer
Claire Langhamer is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Sussex where she has worked for the last ten years. Her interest in Mass Observation began when she was researching for her first book, Women's Leisure in England 1920-1960. Since then MO has been central to her research and she has used it in articles on women and pubs during the Second World War, the meanings of home in mid-century Britain, adultery in the post-war period, and love and courtship. She is currently writing a book on 'everyday love' based on new and old MO.

Prof Brian Street
Brian Street is a Professor of Language in Education at King's College London, and a visiting Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Brian undertook anthropological fieldwork on literacy in Iran during the 1970s, and taught social and cultural anthropology for over twenty years at the University of Sussex before taking up his post at King's. Brian has written and lectured extensively on literacy practices from both a theoretical and an applied perspective hence his interest in writing for MO. In 2000 he co-authored Writing Ourselves: Mass Observation and Literacy Practices (Hampton Press) with Dorothy Sheridan and David Bloome.