About
Manon van Alphen graduated in BA Library Science in Amsterdam in 1996. She worked several years as Digital Librarian in the Municipal Library in Utrecht (NL). While working with various community groups in one of the library branches (Kanaleneiland), she studied Morrocan Arabic for a number of years.
In 1999 she got the opportunity to dive into a new adventure: Uniface Tester & Programmer. She worked for 3 years at Compuware (BMC Compuware) until the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in New York forced the company to lay off the majority of their staff in Amsterdam. At that stage Manon had changed her role to Uniface Trainer. Manon continued to work for one of their bigger clients as Uniface Developer & Trainer for 2 years.
In 2004 Manon applied for a function as Webdeveloper in Amsterdam at Mercer. After a year working for the Dutch branch of this multinational, she moved into an European role (Content Manager Europe), which was based in Dublin. After three years travelling between Amsterdam and Dublin, she moved to Dublin permanently in 2007.
In 2009 Manon got promoted to Senior Associate in her role as Global Digital Marketing Consultant. By then she also was the Global Training Leader and Web Metrics Expert in this company which served 25,000 employees based in more than 40 countries worldwide.
After working 12 years for Mercer, a global restructuring of the company took place and so it was time to move on. Manon decided that she would do a Masters in Library Science (MLIS) at University College Dublin (UCD) and while she had to wait for the next course, she started a two year intensive BSc in Digital Technology, Design and Innovation course at TU Dublin (then DIT). She finished the BSc studies with a group project, creating a new business & sports app. She graduated with first class honours.
The thesis of her MLIS was entitled: “Teacher Librarians: the secret heroes – the impact of school libraries on the improvement of digital literary skills in Irish secondary education“.
During her Masters she started employment as the College Librarian at a third level college, Dorset College Dublin. Next to this she was also a Teaching Assistant/Tutor in UCD for the module “Social Studies of ICTs“, during which she researched various teaching elements for college students.
Currently Manon is the Head of Library, Information Systems and Enhancement in Dorset College. As well as the library, she is the main administrator of Moodle, Office365, Turnitin and EBSCO for all students and staff of the college.