News

Meet LIBER’s New Executive Board Members & Working Group Chairs

Posted: 11-07-2019 Topics: Office News Strategy

LIBER Day 3 Pic Paul Sharp/SHARPPIX

At LIBER’s 2019 Annual Conference, several new Executive Board members and Working Group chairs were appointed.

We are pleased to introduce you to this year’s additions, and appreciate very much the dedication and expertise they are sharing with LIBER.

New Executive Board Members

The four new members of the Executive Board are:

Dr Andreas Brandtner MBA MSc, Library Director, University Library of Freie Universität Berlin, Germany;
Dr Birgit Schmidt, Head of Knowledge Commons, Göttingen State and University Library, Germany;
Dr Heli Kautonen, Library Director, Finnish Literature Society, Finland;
Dr Hilde van Wijngaarden, Library Director, University Library Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.

LIBER’s Executive Board, pictured at LIBER 2019 at Trinity College Dublin. Front Row: Dr Hilde van Wijngaarden, Ms Astrid Verheusen, Ms Agnès Ponsati Obiols, Ms Jeannette Frey (President), Mr John MacColl (Secretary-General). Back Row: Dr Giannis Tsakonas, Dr Andreas Brandtner, Mr Julien Roche (Vice-President), Dr Heli Kautonen, Drs Anja Smit (Treasurer), Ms Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen (Special Advisor), Dr Bertil Dorch, Dr Lars Burman. Missing: Dr Birgit Schmidt, Mr Martin Svoboda.

We warmly welcome our four new Executive Board members and thank everyone who took part in the nomination process. We also thank those who stepped down from the Executive Board in 2019: Dr Wolfram Horstmann, Mr Andris Vilks and Dr Matthijs van Otegem.

New Steering Committee Chair & Secretary

In addition to joining the Executive Board, Dr Birgit Schmidt was appointed as Chair of the Steering Committee for Research Infrastructure. She will be supported in this role by Eliane Blumer as secretary of the committee.

A consequence of taking on this new role is that Birgit will step down as chair of the Research Data Management Working Group. Rob Grim will continue as chair. Anyone interested in becoming co-chair of the Working Group is invited to email Rob directly, or the LIBER Office.

New Working Group Chairs

Several Working Groups also gained new chairs. We warmly welcome:

Ms Kirsty Lingstadt as co-chair of the Digital Humanities & Digital Cultural Heritage Working Group;
Dr Paul Ayris as chair of the new Citizen Science Working Group;
Ms Sofie Wennström as chair of the Open Access Working Group.

Thank you to Working Group chairs who stepped down in 2019: Prof. Andreas Degkwitz (Digital Humanities & Digital Cultural Heritage), Dr Matthijs van Otegem and Mr Lluís Anglada (Open Access).