Philip Payne took up the post of Librarian at Birkbeck, University of London, UK in December 2004. He has previously worked at Leeds Metropolitan University, City of London Polytechnic, the University of Lancaster, and Hatfield Polytechnic. Philip has been involved in practitioner-based research throughout his career and was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)in 2005 for his work in promoting practitioner research. He has been leading a joint initiative between the Society of College National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and the Library and Information Research Group (LIRG)in the UK looking at the impact of higher education libraries on learning, teaching, and research. He is a member of SCONUL's Working Group on Performance Improvement.