John Hodgson
Associate Director: Curatorial Practices
John is a member of the Library Executive Team with strategic responsibility for the development, promotion and care of the Library’s outstanding Special Collections of rare books, maps, manuscripts, archives and visual collections.
He leads a team of librarians, archivists, curators, conservators, imaging specialists, and experts in public and academic engagement. Many are based at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, one of the great libraries of the world: it is both a research powerhouse and a major cultural institution. John also leads the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre, a unique library and archive specialising in the study of race, ethnicity and migration, located within Manchester Central Library.
John is a professional archivist with over thirty years’ experience at The University of Manchester Library. He is the Library’s business partner for the University’s Cultural Institutions. Externally he is a member of the Research Libraries UK Special Collections Leadership Network, the Archives Hub Advisory Group, and the Committee of the Association of Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections. His own academic interests focus on the history of collections and library history.