Speakers

(In alphabetical order)

Gabriela Angelova

National Library "St. St. Cyril and Methodius", and University of Library Studies and Information Technologies – ULSIT, Bulgaria

Gabriela Angelova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Library Sciences at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies.

She graduated from the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in "Library Studies" and "Library Collections" and has a Ph.D.  in “Book studies, Library studies, and Bibliography” doctoral program. She works as an archivist at the National Library of Bulgaria. Her research interests are related to the private libraries of Bulgarian intellectuals and their preservation in an institutional environment, Bulgarian book printing history, rare editions, and old printed books.

Mikkel Christoffersen

Director, EBLIDA
Netherlands

Mikkel Christoffersen is the EBLIDA Director since February 2024.

Previously, he served as the chief consultant at Copenhagen Libraries in Denmark, was working at The Digital Public Library of Denmark as the chief negotiator and business architect for "eReolen," the national e-lending platform in Denmark. Additionally, he chaired the e-lending working group for the NAPLE Forum. While at Copenhagen Libraries, he was leading a new initiative to acquire and analyze data for all facets of library services and target communities, devising solutions based on this information.

Andrew Cranfield

EBLIDA Executive Committee Member
Library Director, Helsingør Kommunes Biblioteker, Denmark

Andrew Cranfield holds a BA in Library and Information Science and an MA in Cultural Studies and has spent most of his professional career working in the Danish library sector, both public and academic.

Bruno Duarte Eiras

Deputy Director-General of Books, Archives, and Libraries, Ministry of Culture, Portugal

Bruno Duarte Eiras is a librarian and history graduate from the University of Lisbon. With a postgraduate degree in Library Science, he has dedicated his career to promoting the central role of libraries beyond books.

From 2003 to 2017, he spearheaded initiatives in the Municipal Libraries Network of Oeiras, focusing on management, projects, technology, and reading promotion. As a participant in the INELI program since 2015, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he represents the Ibero-American librarian community.

He served as Treasurer and Vice-President of the Portuguese Association of Librarians, Archivists, Information and Documentation Professionals (BAD) from 2010 to 2021. As Director of Library Services from 2017 to 2020 at the Directorate-General of Books, Archives, and Libraries, he continued to shape the future of Portuguese libraries.

Marina Encheva

EBLIDA Executive Committee Member
NEDLIB project / Bulgarian Library and Information Association, Bulgaria

Marina Encheva is an Associate Professor at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (Bulgaria).

She holds Master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences and PhD degree in Information Retrieval System from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Dr. Encheva has experience as a librarian at the American University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria and at the Centre for Advanced Study in Sofia. She was also an expert at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science and at the National Centre for Information and Documentation.

In the period 2017-2023 Marina Encheva has been a coordinator of two Erasmus+ projects related to the enhancement of digital literacy skills of students, librarians and teachers through the game-based learning approach. She is a member of the European Distance and E-Learning Network and since 2018 is a member of the Executive Committee of EBLIDA.

Dunja Marija Gabriel

National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia

Dunja Marija Gabriel has been working at the National and University Library in Zagreb for 30 years. Since 2012, she works as a library advisor for public libraries in the Croatian Institute for Librarianship and is responsible for the operation and development of public libraries at the national level. She organizes international conferences on public libraries in cooperation with the Croatian Library Association which follow modern trends, deals with professional topics important for the development of public librarianship, and contribute to the lifelong education of public librarians.

She has been a member of Professional Board of Croatian Library Association (CLA), head of Croatian Public Libraries Section and Croatian Section for Library Services to People with Special Needs, and Standing Committee member of IFLA/LSN Section for Library Services to People with Special Needs in several terms.

Daniel Gonçalves

Librarian, Teresa and Alexandre Soares dos Santos Library, Nova School of Business & Economics, Lisbon, Portugal

Daniel Gonçalves holds a degree in Archival and Library Information Science, as well as a master’s degree in Information Science from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Coimbra. He has been working as a librarian and recently joined the Teresa and Alexandre Soares dos Santos Library. 

Rolf Hapel

Former professor at University of Washington Information School, USA and former Director Aarhus Public Library, Denmark

Rolf Hapel is a library consultant and affiliate instructor at University of Washington iSchool. He was director of Citizens’ Services and Libraries and led the planning and realisation of the library Dokk1 in Aarhus. He has been chairman of numerous steering groups, committees, and boards, and is an internationally renowned speaker on library development and transformation. He served as an expert in architectural competitions for new city libraries in the capitals of Norway and Finland and worked with four different international foundations as advisor in the library field.

Hella Klauser

Vice-President, EBLIDA

Internationale Kooperation, Kompetenznetzwerk für Bibliotheken / knb Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv) Germany

Since 2005 responsible for international cooperation within the Network of Excellence for Libraries (knb) at the German Library Association (Deutscher Bibliotheksverband dbv) in Berlin, Germany.

Nicole Krüger

Zürich University of Applied Sciences, University Library, Switzerland

Nicole Krüger is a librarian and MA in philosophy. After her library studies at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany, she was a teaching librarian at ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. Since 2020 Nicole is an open science specialist at the ZHAW, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, University Library, and team lead of the OER team.

Together with two colleagues from Germany and the UK, Nicole is chairing the LIBER Educational Resources Working Group.

Rauha Maarno

EBLIDA Executive Committee Member
Celia Library for the Visually Impaired, Finland

Rauha Maarno works with customer and public relations in Accessibility Library Celia in Helsinki. Her interests and expertise include accessibility, the role of libraries in the society and leadership for change. She has also worked with non-profit organization management for a strategic change towards more active advocacy for libraries.

Nora Neuhaus de Laurel

HR Officer, Bremen Public Library, Germany

Nora Neuhaus de Laurel studied International Studies of Global Management with focus on HR in Germany and Chile. She has been working in Human Resources Management for 20 years. At the Public Library of Bremen, where she has worked for over 8 years, she´s responsible for HR development, recruitment, and vocational training.

Nora is member in the national HR Recruitment and Employer Branding Committee of the 3 German library associations / professional associations - dbv, BIB and vdb. She is also trained in diversity.

Marie Østergaard

Director, Public Libraries of Aarhus and DOKK 1, 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.

Mairead Owens

EBLIDA Treasurer
Director, City Library of Dublin, Ireland

Mairead Owens was appointed Dublin City Librarian on 1 April 2019. She joined the City Council from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLRCC) where she had been County Librarian for ten years. Mairead brings with her a wealth of experience, notably the development of the internationally acclaimed dlr LexIcon, the central library and cultural centre in Dún Laoghaire.

Jasenka Pleško

President, Croatian Library Association, Croatia

Jasenka Pleško is the Subject Analysis Coordinator at the City Library of Zagreb. Her area of interest is the lifelong education of librarians. She chaired the Commission for Education and Lifelong Learning of the Croatian Library Association several times. She is a member of the IFLA Education and Training Section in her second term.

Since 2022, she has been the president of the Croatian Library Association.

Teresa Pombo

Ministry of Education and Science, Portugal

Teresa Pombo is a teacher librarian and portuguese language teacher in the 3rd Cycle of Basic Education (12-14 year old students). She holds a Master's Degree in Educational Sciences (Educational Technologies) and is a Teacher Trainer. She regularly participates on social media and writes, much less than she would like, about education and reading, areas that
fascinate her.

Between 2009 and 2023, she regularly collaborated with the Portuguese Ministry of Education, promoting teacher training and developing very diverse activities and projects with a common objective: exploring the creative link between the promotion of reading and digital technologies, the development of digital literacy and the urgency from education to the media.

She belongs to the Board of Directors of GLT Global Ed-Real World Learning, a North American association responsible for the Google Lit Trips project, the inspiration for the itineraries with Google Earth Web she and other teachers developed in portuguese available through the Portuguese National Reading Plan website.

Eloy Rodrigues

Director of University Libraries at University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

Eloy Rodrigues has been working on repositories, Open Access and Open Science for almost two decades, having established University of Minho institutional repository in 2003, and coordinating the UMinho team which works on RCAAP (Portugal Open Access Science Repositories) since 2008.

At international level he has being working on several EU funded projects (like OpenAIRE and  FOSTER) related with Open Access and Open Science and is member of the European University Association Expert Group on Open Science. Eloy was the Chair of the Executive Board of COAR, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories from 2015 to 2021, and in that role contributed actively to Next Generation Repositories initiative, the Pubfair conceptual model and the ongoing Notify Project,  in which he is one of the Principal Investigators.

Eloy is currently member of the Executive Board of OpenAIRE and of the Advisory Committee of SciELO Portugal.

Alicia Sellés Carot

EBLIDA Executive Committee Member
Federación Española de Sociedades de Archivística, Biblioteconomía, Documentación y Museística - FESABID, Spain

Alicia Sellés Carot is a librarian. Consultant for libraries and other information services. with special attention to social action and innovation, community transformation and sustainability. She combines these tasks with teaching in specialized courses, degrees and masters related to information management (UOC).

Chair of the  "libraries and Agenda 2030" Working Group of the Library Cooperation Council and participates as an expert in the Library Labs Working Group
Member of the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Spain.

Member of the executive of EBLIDA and of the IFLA Regional Division. Former president of FESABID.

Spaska Tarandova

Global Libraries Foundation, Bulgaria

Spaska Tarandova has been working in the library field for more than 30 years, most of them at Sofia City Library, including as a Deputy Director for 5 years. In the period 2011 – 2013. Since 2015, she has been serving as an Executive Director of the Global Libraries – Bulgaria Foundation (GLBF) that works with network of 960 public libraries in Bulgaria to provide free access to computers, Internet and information for all. She joined in the “Librarians of Tomorrow: Communication and Leadership” program at the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2012-2015 she was the Bulgarian participant in the International Network of Emerging Library Innovators (INELI), sponsored by Gates Foundation. Membership: Bulgarian Library and Information Association, Board Member, Member of Public Libraries Standing Committee, IFLA.

Ton Van Vlimmeren

President, EBLIDA
Netherlands

Ton van Vlimmeren is since 2018 President of EBLIDA, the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations. He is also active as one of the founders of Public Libraries 2030. For twenty years he was director governor of the Utrecht Public Library. He held various board positions in the library world and is active in IFLA, in the International network of the Bertelsmann Foundation, and of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jannie van Vugt

Association Public Libraries: Educational platform for Dutch Library Network, Netherlands

Jannie van Vugt works as project manager for the Dutch Library Association (VOB) since 2022. After her study as a librarian she held various positions in Dutch library organizations. During the longest period of her career she served as director, most recently in Zeeland, a rural province in the south-west of the Netherlands.

The project Jannie is currently managing addresses the importance of well-educated librarians. and aims to rebuild and structure education for employees in public libraries in the Netherlands.

Lucia Werder

Director, Bremen Public Library, Germany

Lucia Werder has been Director of Bremen Public Library since October 2023, before that she was Deputy Director since 2016. Previously she was director of the public library in Leverkusen and director of the public library in Eislingen, a medium-sized town in Germany. She studied at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne, Germany, and has a Diploma in Library Science.