Some tragic news to pass on from Stuart Dempster at JISC.  Many of you will have met Simon at several DLF Forums, or in his work with Stanford and others on high-speed and robotic scanning.  He was young, smart, and a pleasure to work with – a real loss to our community.  

 

David

 

Dear Colleague,

 

It is with very great sadness that I have to inform you of the death of Simon Brackenbury on Monday. Simon led the BOPCRIS project at the University of Southampton. Simon was instrumental in implementing the UK's first high volume robotic scanning initiative and was amongst the UK’s leading digital library developers.

 

Many of you will recall Simon's energy, expertise, friendship, good humour and visionary sense of purpose in building open access e-resources for us all. His infectious enthusiasm helped steer a spirit of true collaboration and common purpose amongst the JISC Digitisation Projects and beyond.

 

I am sure that you will join me in sending our deepest condolences to Simon's family, friends and colleagues, all of whom should be in our thoughts and prayers at this sad time. Simon will be sadly missed and fondly remembered.   

 

I understand that Simon’s family has suggested that donations for various charities, rather than flowers would be appreciated. I will send you further information on this next week.

 

Sincerely,

 

Stuart Dempster

Programme Manager,

The Joint Information Systems Committee,

Kings College London,

Strand Bridge House,

138-142 Strand,

London

WC2R 1HH

United Kingdom

 

Tel: +44 (0)20-7848-2564

Fax: +44 (0)20-7848-2939

Mobile: +44 (0)7971-928-288