Speakers

Martin Berendse

Director, Amsterdam Public Library, Netherlands

Martin Berendse has been appointed Chief Executive of Public Library Amsterdam (OBA), after a career in marketing consultancy, management of performing arts organizations, national cultural policy and archives management. He feels that all aspects of his previous activities now are combined in his position in the OBA, a network of libraries in and around Amsterdam, amongst which the central library of famous Dutch architect Jo Coenen.

Biodata:

• Chief Executive Public Library Amsterdam (OBA, 2014-…..)
• President of the International Council on Archives (2010-2014)
• National Archivist of the Netherlands (2008-2014)
• Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (head of Arts Department, 1998-2007)
• Managing director performing arts organizations (1990-1998)
• Marketing consultant (1987-1990)
• Education: Law Utrecht (LLM), Archival Science Amsterdam (MA)

Anders Cato

NAPLE Chair, Denmark

Anders Cato currently works as a senior advisor at the Center for Arts and Libraries at the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces in Copenhagen.

Before coming to Copenhagen he worked at the National Library of Sweden, for some years as Head of the National Bibliography and some other years as Head of Cataloguing.

Anders is much involved in international work and has been engaged in several sections and working groups of IFLA and is currently Secretary-General of  the International Association of Music Libraries, Institutions and Documentation Centres (IAML).

Anders agreed to take on the role as NAPLE Chair for the period 2018-2020 after Tine Vind who left for other duties in 2018.

Tom Enright

Chief Executive of Wexford County Council, Ireland

Tom Enright was appointed Chief Executive of Wexford County Council in 2014.

A native of Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, Mr. Enright worked in Limerick for almost 20 years where he held the posts of Director of Environment and Emergency Services with Limerick County Council and Director of Planning and Economic Development with Limerick City and County Councils. He previously worked with Waterford and Wicklow County Councils and with consultants in the private sector.

He is a graduate of University College Cork and Cranfield University in the UK and holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from Dublin City University.

Marian Harkin

Member of the European Parliament

Marian Harkin is an Independent MEP representing the 15 counties of the Midlands-North-West constituency in the European Parliament– Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Roscommon, Galway, Mayo, Longford, Westmeath, Meath, Kildare, Louth, Laois and Offaly. She is in her third European term following the 2014 European Election in May and previously represented Sligo/Leitrim as a TD in Dáil Éireann.

In 2011 in the MEP of the Year Awards, Marian won the “Outstanding Achievement Award’ in recognition of her work in promoting the interests of volunteers and volunteering in the European Union. In 2012, she won the MEP of the Year Award for her work in the area of Employment and Social Affairs. She was also nominated by the World Council of Credit Unions for an MEP award in this year’s Economic and Monetary Affairs, Taxation and Budgets’ Award.

Florianne-Marielle Job

Director, Third-place Puzzle, Thionville, France

As director of the Third-place Puzzle, in Thionville, France, Floriane-Marielle JOB currently oversees the activities and developments of the library, art center and digital studio.

After a curriculum in political sciences, she started a career as a civil servant at the French ministry of finance in 2016. Wanting to contribute within society through the implementation of cultural public policies, she then trained as a library curator. Her background in social sciences and public finances lead her to specialised in the field of management and evaluation. She shares her research and findings through her blog aiming to help manager of cultural institutions in their daily activities.

Her keen interest in learning from experiences and good practices in libraries abroad lead her to enrol as an interpreter at the IFLA annual Congress and to volunteer as a moderator in the 2018 EBLIDA-NAPLE conference.

Ilona Kish

Director, Public Libraries 2030, Belgium

Ilona is a Library Avenger. As Director of Public Libraries 2030, she aims to create a stronger European library sector through EU advocacy and network building.

A former Secretary General of Culture Action, Ilona has extensive experience in EU advocacy and campaigning, as well as a thorough working knowledge of both the operational and political functions of EU institutions.

Deirdre Maloney

Assistant Principal Officer in Libraries Development and Community Policy, Department of Rural and Community Development, Ireland

Deirdre Maloney, Assistant Principal Officer in the Department of Rural and Community Development, has a background in community and rural development with considerable experience of EU co-funded programmes such as LEADER and PEACE.

She currently has responsibility for the Community Services Programme, which supports local social enterprise development, and she also manages the Department’s responsibilities under the EU Peace IV programme.

Deirdre also has policy responsibility for the public library service in Ireland, with a specific focus on strategy development, formulating innovative initiatives and funding frameworks to underpin delivery of library services by local authorities.
 

Cathal McCauley

University Librarian, Maynooth University, Ireland

Cathal was appointed University Librarian at Maynooth University in September 2008. Between 2002 and 2008 he fulfilled a number of roles in University College Dublin (UCD) Library including Head of Reader Services. Prior to joining UCD Cathal worked for the accountants and management consultants FGS (now Grant Thornton) where he held a variety of posts including Director of Consulting.

Cathal's research interests include library design, strategic collection development, and the harnessing of new technologies and new service models to enhance the library experience for staff and readers. Cathal oversaw the design and delivery of Maynooth University’s €20 million library extension which was officially opened in June 2013. He is a regular speaker and guest lecturer on issues facing libraries including library design, innovation and change management. He is active nationally as a Vice President and Council member of the Library Association of Ireland (LAI), a member, and former Chair, of the Irish Universities Association Librarians’ Group (IUALG) and he is currently Chair of the Consortium of National and University Libraries in Ireland (CONUL). In 2016 he oversaw the move of the IReL initiative to MU and is Director of the Irish University Libraries Collaboration Centre (IULCC). 

Internationally, he is a member, and information coordinator, of IFLA’s Library Building and Equipment Section and he represents the IUA at European Universities Association (EUA) high level group on ‘Big Deals’.

Marie Østergaard

Library Director, Aarhus Public Libraries and Dokk1, Aarhus, Denmark

As Library Director of Aarhus Public Libraries, Marie oversees Dokk1 (the main library) and 18 branches. Since the beginning of her career in 2001 she has been part of Aarhus Public Libraries’ development of the library as a democratic space – a non-commercial space that empowers citizenship, sustainable communities and human growth.
Focusing on the knowledge city, user-involvement, partnerships, design thinking and rethinking of library space, she has investigated new technologies, involvement processes and organisational learning in library development.

From 2005-2015 Marie was the project leader of the building of Dokk1, implementing and developing these ideas as well as introducing new formats of user- and citizen involvement in the planning and building of Dokk1, that opened in June 2015.

Dokk1 is the largest public library in the Nordic Countries and won the Public Library of the Year Award in 2016. It has been highly acclaimed both in- and outside the library world for its rethinking of library spaces, partnerships, involvement of users and part-taking in city development.

After the opening of Dokk1, Marie took on a leadership position focusing on community engagement, partnerships and design thinking. In 2017 she was appointed Library Director of all 19 libraries in Aarhus.
Throughout the years she has worked intensely with co-operation and partnerships – nationally and internationally – to ensure development and innovation in the library sector.
She is the co-inventor of Next Library – a biannual international conference gathering thought leaders and innovators from over 30 countries around the world in a highly interactive forum discussing the development of libraries for the benefit of communities. 

Stefano Parise

Vice-President, EBLIDA, Italy

Stefano Parise, Director of the public library network of Milan and Deputy Director for Culture.

He started his professional career in 1988 as children librarian. From 2006 to 2011 he used to be General Director of "Fondazione Per Leggere", a network coordinating 58 public libraries in a half million people's area in the south west of Milan; meanwhile, from 2005 to 2008 he was the coordinator of Public Library National Committee of Italian Libraries Association (AIB).

From 2008 to 2011 he served as member of the AIB governing board. In this role he was member of Italian executive committee for IFLA World Library and Information Congress held in Milan, August 2009. He was the President of Italian Library Association (AIB) between 2011 and 2014 and he is at present Vice-President of EBLIDA. As Director of the Milan public libraries, he represents his city in the EuroCities working group "Access to culture" and coordinates the activities of Milan as Unesco Creative City for literature.

His professional interests are focused on library policies, copyright and reading promotion.

Jean-Marie Reding

Treasurer, EBLIDA, Luxembourg

Professional experience: working at the National Library of Luxembourg (management of legal deposit for serials (2001-2012), retro-cataloguing of dead serials (2012-2015), creating national authority records for the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) since 2015).

Association experience:
- President of the Luxembourgish librarians', archivists' and documentalists' association, ALBAD, 2003-2016. Since 2016 Past-President & Vice-president for European Affairs.

- Secretary General of the national association for public libraries, ULBP, from 2007-2010. Board member since 2010.

- President of the national fundraising organisation for public libraries, FëBLux, since 2009.

- Member of the national book council, Conseil National du Livre,2007-2016.

- Executive Committee member of EBLIDA, since May 2015.

Elisabet Rundqvist

National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

I am an executive officer at the National Library of Sweden, which is both a library and a government agency.

I have been working at the government agency since 2007 with various areas of the Swedish librarianship.  2010 a campaign started called Digidel2013, the campaign worked for three. The work started through a national dialogue between primarily libraries, popular education and the Internet Foundation, but the number of participating organizations grew rapidly. In December 2010, 16 organizations signed a joint call for cooperation and a joint campaign for increased digital participation, one of them was the National Library of Sweden. I have been part of this undertaking since 2010, and still is. Since 2014 we have run a network for digital inclusion, Digidel, some of the years with governmental founding, some of the years with sponsors.

From this work the National library of Sweden made a requested finances from the government for a large scale competence development of the librarians at the public libraries in all municipals of Sweden, and was granted 2,5 million € per year 2018-2020.

Anders Söderbäck

Member, EBLIDA Executive Board, Sweden

Anders Söderbäck isHead of the Digital Library at Stockholm Public Libraries.

He was previously responsible for IT and systems development at Stockholm University Library where he played an integral part in developing the library into a change-orientated organization with a big focus on open science.  He has been involved in promoting open data and open source library systems on both national and international level, as well as writing one of the first Swedish collective licensing agreements to make available digitized research publications from Stockholm University.

Anders has also worked at the National Library of Sweden in coordination and strategy for the Swedish union catalogue Libris, as well as the Bibsam national licensing consortia.  In 2008, he was part of the team that made Libris the first library union catalogue published as linked open data on the web. 

Anders is a member of the EBLIDA Executive Committee

Marit Vestlie

National Library of Norway, Oslo, Norway

Marit Vestlie is a senior adviser at the National Library Norway. She is a librarian with a wide range of responsibilities in the library community.  
Marit Vestlie's academic interest has been bibliographical work and she has worked on a number of different aspects within metadata standards and production. For 8th years she was a member of IFLA’s Standing Committee on Cataloging.

Throughout the years she has worked intensely with co-operation, on a national, a Nordic  and international level   to ensure development and innovation in the library sector.

She has participated in several international projects such as the EU/ EFG project,  and been head of the Norwegian IFLA WLIC in 2005.

'Over the past twenty years, she has been the leader of various organizations in the field of library. Last director of the Department of Library Services at the National Library, Norway

Currently she works as a project manager for The Nordic Library Project, funded by The Nordic Council of  Ministry of Culture and organized and run by the National  libraries in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The National Library of Norway coordinates the project.

Giuseppe Vitiello

EBLIDA Director, Netherlands

From 1989 to 2018 Giuseppe Vitiello served as Head of Unit, Programme Adviser and Expert in various international organisations: European Commission, Council of Europe, ISSN International Centre, EU-ISS and NATO Defense College.

Earlier in his carrier, he acted as Head R&D, National Library in Florence and lectured at the Universities of Orléans and Toulouse.

He also held visiting positions at the Hochschule der Medien in Stuttgart and the University of Venice.Giuseppe is a member of AIB (Italian Library Association) and assisted AIB in various positions (programme coordinator, co-editor of the AIB Bulletin, AIB delegate with ASVIS). With a master in Political Science -international relations, he has post-graduated diplomas in History (Paris, E.H.E.S.S.) and in Library Science (School of administration, Rome).

He is the author of six books and more than one hundred articles in library & information science and history of culture.

Ton van Vlimmeren

President EBLIDA, Netherlands

Ton van Vlimmeren is director of the Public Library of Utrecht in the Netherlands since 2010. Earlier he held that position from 1995 till 2004.

He was trained and worked as a psychologist, as a teacher, an educational consultant and Director of Public Education in Utrecht.

He also acted as director for the city of Utrecht in different roles like Real Estate and Urban Planning, Districts and Civic Centers and Public Services.

He was vice-president of the Dutch Library Association and member of the governmental steering committee for library innovation in the Netherlands.

He contributed in the International Libraries Network of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Global Libraries Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Public Libraries 2020 program of the Reading and Writing Foundation.

He is president of the board of NBD/Biblion, the national Librarymedia supplier in the Netherlands and member of the board of the Pica Foundation that supports innovation in libraries.

Since 2018 he is president of Eblida, the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations.