When Eric Pattison, an Alumnus of the School of English at the University of Sheffield, sadly passed away in 2024, he left a phenomenal gift of over £1.1million to the University in his Will. This gift, one of the largest legacy gifts in the University’s recent history, was allocated by Eric’s wishes to the University Library and to the creation of a number of scholarship opportunities within the School of English.
You can read more about Eric’s life and legacy here. We are incredibly grateful for the generous gift from Eric, and we are keen to share our plans on how we will be looking to improve our library offer at Western Bank Library.
About the project
The project will take place over the course of 3 years, with the initial planning period taking place between September 2025 - January 2026. The aim of the work that has been facilitated by Eric’s gift is to support the development and delivery of Digital Scholarship within the library by the provision of physical and digital collections supported by space, tools, equipment and , expertise.
In order to best deliver on this aim, we understand that meaningful engagement will be essential, and as such we will be establishing an Academic Advisory Board to enable us to work with a range of stakeholders from across the institution to deliver on our key objectives for the project:
Key objectives
- Provide greater access to physical and digital collections and resources for our researchers, teachers and students
- Provide digitally enabled, shareable spaces that are collaborative, flexible and accessible
- Inspire, enthuse and challenge students, including by the promotion of object-based learning
- Facilitate increased contact time with students when using physical and digital collections.
- Develop and provide digital scholarship services, such as AI knowledge, in partnership with key stakeholders
We look forward to sharing our progress with you all as we undertake this project - one that would not have been possible without Eric’s generous gift for which we are incredibly grateful.