A new recruit and two retirees: news of Dr Rachel Salzano, Dr Peter Cruickshank, and Dr David Haynes

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Hazel Hall

Dr Rachel Salzano

Congratulations to Dr Rachel Salzano, who starts the new academic year 2024/5 with a permanent contract as a lecturer in the Applied Informatics subject group of the School of Computing, Engineering, and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University.

Rachel initially took up a fixed-term post within the Group soon after completing her PhD on public libraries, forced migrants, and culture, which I supervised from 2019 within the Centre for Social Informatics alongside Dr David Brazier and Dr Gemma Webster (now a lecturer at Dundee University). It is great news that Rachel‘s contract is now open-ended. Continue reading →

Community validation in qualitative research: contribution to #asist23

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Hazel Hall

ASIST 2023 poster Salzano Hall Webster Brazier

Poster by Edinburgh Napier Social Informatics Research Group colleagues presented at #ASIST23

The main programme of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology opens today in London. Sadly I cannot be there in person with my (lucky) Edinburgh Napier University Social Informatics Research Group colleagues*. Continue reading →

Community validation as a method to establish trustworthiness in qualitative LIS research: submission accepted for #asist2023

Posted on August 13, 2023 by Hazel Hall

Community validation as a method to establish trustworthiness in qualitative LIS research has been accepted for the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology. The conference takes place in London between 27th and 31st October this year.

This contribution to the conference poster session is an output from Dr Rachel Salzano‘s doctoral study. It was co-authored by Rachel and her supervision team members: Professor Hazel Hall, Dr Gemma Webster, and Dr David Brazier. Here we evaluate a novel means to determine trustworthiness in qualitative and mixed methods research, while making reference to Rachel’s doctoral study on the adoption and use of public library services by forced migrants. Continue reading →

Congratulations Dr Rachel Salzano!

Posted on July 13, 2023 by Hazel Hall

Rachel Salzano at the Usher Hall just before the start of the graduation ceremony

Congratulations to Dr Rachel Salzano, who was awarded her PhD at the Edinburgh Napier graduation ceremony at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh last Friday 7th July.

I supervised Rachel’s doctoral work alongside Dr Gemma Webster and Dr David Brazier. Given that Rachel was only five and a half months into her doctoral study when the UK went into the first of the COVID19 lockdowns* in March 2020, we consider it a real achievement that she managed to complete her empirical work, write it up, and submit her thesis in October 2022, exactly three years after joining our research group.

Rachel’s doctoral study is entitled The influence of culture on perceived use of public libraries by forced migrants in Scotland and England. Continue reading →

Forced migrants, integration, and public libraries: new research published in ‘Information Research’

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Hazel Hall

forced migrants, public libraries, integration, local authorities, Scotland, research, Salzano, Hall, Webster, Brazier

Abstract of ‘Is the public library included? An analysis of local government documentation on the integration of forced migrants in Scotland’ (Salzano, Hall, Webster & Brazier, 2022)

Is the public library included? An analysis of local government documentation on the integration of forced migrants in Scotland by Rachel Salzano, Hazel Hall, Gemma Webster, and David Brazier has been published. The paper features in the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science as the October 2022 special issue of Information Research.The 2022 CoLIS conference was held at Oslo Metropolitan University between May 29th and June 1st 2022. Continue reading →

What are public libraries for? Rachel Salzano presents doctoral research at #asist2022

Posted on November 1, 2022 by Hazel Hall

The 85th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this week. Those of us who cannot be there in person have been following the conference proceedings on Twitter at #asist2022 over the past couple of days.

Amongst the conference speakers is Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Rachel Salzano. Today at 15:00 UK time (09:00 in Pittsburgh) Rachel is presenting a paper co-authored with her PhD supervisors entitled ‘What are public libraries for? Culture as a determinant of conceptualizations of public library services for forced migrants’. The slides are available on SlideShare, and the full text paper can be read online in the conference proceedings. Continue reading →

Is the public library included? New paper on local authority services for forced migrants from Edinburgh Napier University team at #CoLIS11

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Hazel Hall

Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS) 11 opens today in Oslo, Norway. Hosted by the Department of Archivistics, Library and Information Science at Oslo Metropolitan University, the conference runs until Wednesday 1st June. Continue reading →

Paper acceptance at #CoLIS11 for Rachel Salzano and her supervision team

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Hazel Hall

Rachel Salzano

Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Rachel Salzano is looking forward to travelling to Oslo at the end of May to present a paper accepted for Conceptions of Library and Information Science CoLIS 2022.

Co-authored with her supervision team (myself, Dr Gemma Webster and Dr David Brazier) Rachel’s paper is concerned with the findings from an element of the empirical work that she has undertaken for her doctoral study: an analysis of documents gathered from Scottish local authorities on strategies to support the integration of newcomer populations who have entered the country as a result of forced migration. The specific focus of this piece of research is the perceived role of Scottish public libraries in such efforts. Continue reading →

A presentation by Dr Morgan Harvey on egovernment services and the digital divide

Posted on November 27, 2021 by Hazel Hall

Given that my last in-person research seminar was early last year on 19th February 2020 (when I was the speaker at an event at the University of Glasgow), I was very excited to venture onto campus ten days ago on 17th November 2021 to welcome a visitor to the Centre for Social Informatics. At the invitation of Dr David Brazier, Dr Morgan Harvey, Lecturer in Data Science and Information Retrieval in the Information School at the University of Sheffield, kindly travelled to Edinburgh to present the findings from some research that he conducted when employed at Northumbria University. He also took advantage of the trip north to work with David on revisions to a paper that they have recently co-authored. Continue reading →

Registration opens for ‘digital proxies’ workshop for information workers

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Hazel Hall

Are you an information worker who supports citizens in their use online systems by accessing digital services on their behalf as their ‘digital proxy’? Perhaps this kind of activity has become part of your role working in local government, a public library service, civil society, and/or a third sector organisation?

If so, my Centre for Social Informatics colleagues Dr Gemma Webster, Dr David Brazier, Peter Cruickshank and Dr Bruce Ryan would like to invite you to participate at one of three free half-day online workshops next month. Continue reading →

Hazel Hall

Emeritus Professor, Edinburgh Napier University

Tag Archives: Gemma Webster