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Andrew Prescott was from 1979-2000 a Curator in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, where he acted as British Library co-ordinator for a number of digital projects, including most notably Electronic Beowulf, edited by Kevin S Kiernan of the University of Kentucky. From 2000-2007 he was Director of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry in the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield. He has also worked at the University of Wales Lampeter and University of Glasgow. He has served on the advisory boards of many digital humanities projects in Britain and America.

• The history of libraries and archives, particularly the history of the British Library
• Imaging of historical documents, manuscripts and printed books
• Changing means of scholarly communication, including the use of social media
• Aspects of British social history including the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and the history of Freemasonry and fraternal organisations

Publications

Andrew is currently working on a study of the relationship between the digital humanities and wider theoretical developments in the arts and humanities. Part of this work will be presented in his inaugural lecture in the Department of Digital Humanities in 2012. Forthcoming articles include ‘Digital Transformations in the Library’ in Evaluating & Measuring the Value, Use and Impact of Digital Collections, edited by Lorna Hughes (Facet Publishing, 2011) and contributions to Le Monde Maçonnique, an encylopaedia of eighteenth-century Freemasons edited by Cecile Revauger and Charles Porset.

Among the project advisory groups on which Andrew has recently served are Early English Manuscripts 1060-1220 (Universities of Leicester and Leeds), Imaging the Bible in Wales (University of Wales Lampeter) and Monastic Wales (University of Wales Lampeter and Aberystwyth University).

Andrew welcomes applications for PhD supervision in library and archive studies and the study of historical textuality.

The doctoral theses he has successfully supervised include:

James Daniel,The 4th Earl of Carnarvon (1831-90): Statesman and Freemason (Sheffield, 2009). 

Pam Davies, The Development of Freemasonry in Merthyr Tydfil 1810-1914 (Sheffield, 2010). 

Ann Pilcher Dayton, Women Freemasons and Feminist causes 1908 – 1935: The Case of the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Masonry (Sheffield, 2011).

Andrew is Chair of the Network of Expert Centres, a federation of digital humanities centres in the UK. He is a member of the Peer Review College of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and a Strategic Reviewer for the AHRC. Among the advisory groups on which Andrew currently serves are the JISC Digital Content Taskforce, the AHRC Digital Transformations Advisory Group.

Professor Prescott is Leadership Fellow for the AHRC’s Digital Transformations theme.