I originally joined UKOLN as an ‘Interoperability Focus Officer’, the sort of job title which the recent reform in the University pay structure has more or less rendered extinct. Then I met Rachel – who, I will state for the record, scared the socks off me. It did not take long before she discovered that I had a background in Java programming, and shortly thereafter, I found myself working on her metadata schema registry. It was challenging. But it was also a lot of fun. <\/p>\n
The project still contains within it the reminder of its defining conflict, which could perhaps be termed ‘idealists versus pragmatists’. Beyond all else, Rachel was a pragmatist. She was entirely able to accept and recognise the beauty of the elaborate, but never hesitated to point out its weaknesses, and so for me she is fondly remembered as a strong, forceful realist who stood for no nonsense. With Rachel, you knew exactly where you stood, which was wonderful, even though for many it took a bit of getting used to. Oh yes – and those who have added that she was funny are entirely right, too. She was sharply intelligent, vital, impatient, inspiring and a rock of stability. <\/p>\n
Very few of the people now working on IEMSR have ever met her, which surprises me every time I think about it. Here on level 5 of Wessex House, surrounded with a project and a national and international community that was so very Rachel, it always seemed as though she had never entirely left UKOLN. I am very lucky to have been able to work with her, even for a little while. My condolences go to her family and friends.<\/p>\n
Although this is not a personal blog, this is a personal post, and because it’s within my power to choose whatever closing remarks I prefer, I’d like to finish by proposing a toast to the memory of not one but two outstanding people, who would I believe have shared largely similar opinions about the concept of blogging, who are fondly remembered, inspiring, and more deeply missed than I am sure they would ever believe: I originally joined UKOLN as an ‘Interoperability Focus Officer’, the sort of job title which the recent reform in the University pay structure has more or less rendered extinct. Then I met Rachel – who, I will state for the record, scared the socks off me. It did not take long before she discovered that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emmatonkin.com\/ukolndev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRachel Heery<\/a>
\nProfessor Patrick Squire<\/a><\/p>\n