Katie is responsible for the development, management, curation and promotion of the Library’s special collections. She leads the Special Collections team and also has strategic responsibility for public engagement across Libraries & Collections. She joined King’s in 1997, having previously worked at the University of Birmingham and at London Metropolitan Archives. She holds degrees from Oxford, York and UCL and is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). She has served on the committee of the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group and as an external examiner in historical bibliography and manuscript studies at UCL.

She currently chairs the University of London Federal Libraries Group Civic Engagement committee and sits on the committee of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa) and on the Library, Museums and Archives committee of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.  

Areas of Expertise

Ask her about rare books, the history of the book, King’s College London’s library special collections as well as UK special collections librarianship, especially collection development, cataloguing and public engagement.

Training

Katie and other members of the Special Collections team lead a range of seminars for undergraduate and postgraduate students, all of which incorporate special collections items in the curriculum.

Examples of modules in which Katie leads seminars include Collecting Cultures (7AAIAM11) and Representing the Eighteenth Century (7AAEM604). 

Please have a look at the KLASS module Using Special Collections In Your Studies to learn more about how Katie and the team can support you.

Links

• King's Special Collections
• King's Collections blog

Publications

Sambrook, K., & Priest, C. (2021). Voyage to Madagascar: the making of an online exhibition.  African Research and Documentation, 140, 10-17. https://doi:10.1017/S0305862X00024523

Breen, S., & Sambrook, K. (2014). Byron and politics: ‘born for opposition’. A collaborative exhibition at King’s College London’. SCONUL Focus, 60, 7-11. www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/3rev.pdf

Beaton, R., Breen, S., Kenyon Jones, C., McClay, D. & Sambrook, K. (2013). Byron and politics: ‘born for opposition’. London: King’s College London.

Beckett, R., Cullingford, A., Dooley, J.M., Sambrook, K., Sheppard, C. & Worrall, S. (2013). Survey of Special Collections and Archives in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2013/2013-01.pdf

Donnelly, S. & Sambrook, K. (2006). Promoting special collections and archives. CILIP Update, 5 (1-2).

Donnelly, S. & Sambrook, K. (2005). Developing your special collections. CILIP Update, 4(4).

Sambrook, K (2005). ‘Books and their owners’. Book chapter in: Harris, M., Mandelbrote, G. & Myers, R., Owners, annotators and the signs of reading. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll; London: British Library

Sambrook, K. (2000). ‘King’s College London.’ Book chapter in: Fabian, B. Handbuch deutscher historischer Büchbestande in Europa. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag