Current roles

Career Overview

Ian completed his D.Phil. at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1999. He was Munby Fellow in Bibliography at the University of Cambridge for 1999-2000 and was a Research Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography at the University of Oxford between 2000 and 2002. He was appointed lecturer at Bath Spa University in 2002 and became a Professor in 2011. In 2014 he won the University's Teacher of the Year award, as voted for by the students.

He was appointed as the Academic Director of the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA) in 2015. GALA is an international community of diverse, innovative, and socially responsible universities and colleges whose aims are to transform lives and to enhance global understanding through interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and research. It was founded by Bath Spa University in 2014, and currently has 19 partners in 14 countries. He was also appointed the Head of Development for European Projects, in 2019, where he oversees Bath Spa's Erasmus+ funded projects.

Research profile

Ian is a bibliographer and book historian, with a focus on sixteenth-, seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. He has a particular interest in the ways in which printed texts were produced and circulated, and the economics of the early modern English book trade as well as the critical editing of literary and non-literary works from that period. He has broader research interests in the cultural history of early modern London, and in recent years has begun to explore the history of situated and embodied reading.

His PhD was on the history of the Stationers' Company, and he has written several articles on the Company's activities. He is currently co-editing an edition of a Company record, Liber A, with Peter Blayney and Karen Waring. He and Giles Bergel recently published Stationers' Register Online, a searchable database of all the entries of publishing rights recorded by the Company between 1557 and 1640. 

Ian co-edited Jonathan Swift's English Political writings, 1711–14 (Cambridge University Press, 2008) as part of a new critical edition of Swift's complete works; in 2007, he was made Textual Advisor to this project, and in 2009, General Editor. He is co-editing three further volumes in the series.

He edited volume one of a four-volume The History of Oxford University Press (2013–17), under the general editorship of Professor Simon Eliot.

Research Awards

  • 2015: Muriel McCarthy Research Fellowship (one month), Marsh’s Library, Dublin Editing Jonathan Swift’s religious writings
  • 2011: Charlton Hinman Research Fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC
  • 2010-2011: Bath Spa University sabbatical
  • 2008-2009: Katharine F. Pantzer Jr Research Fellowship in the History of the Book, London Bibliographical Society. Project: The Stationers' Company and the Universities, 1580s-1780s
  • 2005: AHRB Research Leave Award. Project: A Critical Edition of Jonathan Swift's Political Writings 1711-14
  • 2003, 2007, 2009: British Academy Overseas Conference Grants.

Funded Digital Projects

  • 2016–2017: 'Stationers' Register Online', with Dr Giles Bergel (Oxford); funded by CREATe, Glasgow; the Bibliographical Society, London; and the College of Liberal Arts, Bath Spa University
  • 2016–2018: (Co-I) Ambient Literature with Jon Dovey (PI, UWE), Kate Pullinger (Bath Spa), Tom Abba (UWE), Matt Hayler (Birmingham University). Funded by AHRC
  • 2011–2013: ‘Stationers’ Register Online’, with Giles Bergel, Pip Willcox, and James Cummings (University of Oxford) Digital edition of Edward Arber’s Transcript of the Stationers’ Register. Funded by Lyell Fund.
  • 2008–2010: ‘Virtual Printing Press’, with Gabriel Egan (Loughborough University) Online model of a hand-press. JISC pilot funding
  • 1996–2014: HoBo website, editor Calendar of history of the book lectures, seminars and conferences in UK and Europe. Hosted by Faculty of English, University of Oxford; supported by News International Fund 2001–8.

Academic qualifications

  • MA Edinburgh
  • M.St. Oxford
  • D.Phil. Oxford.

Professional qualifications

  • 2006 Professional Development Certificate in E-Learning, Netskills, University of Newcastle
  • 2005 Teaching and Learning in Higher Education certification, Bath Spa University
  • 2005 'Rising Star' Teaching Fellow, Bath Spa University
  • 2000 D.Phil, University of Oxford.

External Roles

The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) was founded in 1824 and re-established in 1993. Its purpose is the promotion and advancement, for the public benefit, of science, literature and art in the City of Bath and its surrounding areas. Bath Spa University has the right to appoint a Director to BRLSI's Board. Ian is currently serving as:

  • Chair of the Board of Directors 2021–
  • Director 2019–

The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) is an international organisation supporting the study of the 'history of the book' with over 1000 members. Ian served on SHARP's Executive Council in various roles between 2003 and 2019.

  • Interim Vice-President 2018–19
  • President 2013-17
  • President 2009-13
  • Recording Secretary 2003-2009
  • Member of organising committee, SHARP Annual Conference 2008, Oxford Brookes University
  • European Reviews Editor for SHARP News, its quarterly newsletter, 2000-2006.

He is currently an external member of the Curators of University Libraries committee at the University of Oxford. He has also served on the Advisory Council of the Institute of the English Studies (2013-17), as External Examiner for the MA in Early Modern English Literature: Text and Transmission, King's College, London (2011-15), and as a member of the AHRC's Peer Review College (2009–12).

He is a member of the following scholarly organisations: London Bibliographical Society; Oxford Bibliographical Society; Cambridge Bibliographical Society; Bibliographical Society of America; Bibliographical Society of Virginia.

Teaching specialism

  • Early modern English Literature
  • Early modern English book trade
  • History of the book
  • Descriptive and analytical bibliography
  • Editorial practice and theory
  • Embodied and situated reading

Currently supervising the following PhD projects:

  • The sociology of the Stationers' Register 1557–1637
  • The fiction of Don Winslow

Works in progress

  • Co-editor (with Bertrand Goldgar and Ian Higgins) of Jonathan Swift, _Political Writings 1701-11_ (Cambridge University Press)
  • Co-editor (with Ian Higgins) of Jonathan Swift, _Writings on Religion and the Church to 1714_ (Cambridge University Press)
  • Co-editor (with Ian Higgins) of Jonathan Swift, _Writings on Religion and the Church from 1714_ (Cambridge University Press)
  • Co-editor (with Dr Peter Blayney and Karen Waring) of _Liber A_, a key record of the London book trade, to be published by the London Bibliographical Society

Research and academic outputs

Go to ResearchSPAce