 My name is Pauline McGonagall. I'm doing a collaborative doctorate with the British Library and the University of Exeter. I'm working on the archive of Ruth Proward-Jubbala and my PhD is on the construction of identity in her fictional work. I'm very interested in the process of how that came about. Where it started, where the idea came from and how that germinated into a fully published piece of work. I visit Exeter to have supervision meetings, to talk to other academics and to meet up and discuss and get advice from them. At the British Library, I have participators in various events, including a recent opportunity to talk to open day researchers who come to see what their library can offer for their work. Collaborative doctoral programme gives lots of opportunities to researchers. It is also like a scaffolding, you get the supportive network of people that give you lots of different ways to approach a problem. They've given us access to experts. They also give you a work insight to an area that most people don't get. A PhD can be a very lonely type of work, a very lonely journey. Well if you do a collaborative doctoral programme, it certainly isn't that. You get great opportunities to share your work, which is really an important part in helping you think through some of those problems and talk about them out loud, which can reassess the way in which you approach them.