Prof. Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas

Director General of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Prof. Renaldas Gudauskas received his graduate diploma in Library and Information Sciences at Vilnius University. In Saint Petersburg‘s Institute of Culture he defended his doctoral dissertation in Social Sciences. Since 1985, he has been giving lectures to bachelor and master level students at Vilnius University. In 1996–1998, Prof. Renaldas Gudauskas was Advisor for Information and Communication to the President of Lithuania; in 1998–2000, Vice-Minister for information and informatics at the Ministry of Public Administration; in 2001–2005, Advisor to Prime Minister of Lithuania for science, education and information society development. Now Prof. Renaldas Gudauskas is an expert at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

In 2010, Prof. Renaldas Gudauskas became Director General of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, developing the organization‘s core mission, to ensure satisfaction of the Lithuanian knowledge society’s needs for documentary and digital information. His important priorities are international cooperation, cultural heritage digitization and strategic projects.

Currently Prof. R. Gudauskas is a board member of the association ”Bibliotheca Baltica”. His main activity in the Association is related to the cooperation of libraries of the Baltic Region, project initiation, international library and information policy-making institutions. He is also the national representative of the UNESCO Information for All Programme (IFAP), the European Science Foundation, member of the Geosciences Centre of Coimbra University (Portugal) and an expert at the Science Council of Lithuania  (Information Society & eGovernment). In 2012, he was member of the Management Committee of The European Library; in 2014–2018, President of the Bibliotheca Baltica Association.

Dr. Jānis Krēsliņš

Senior Academic Librarian for Research Affairs at the National Library of Sweden

The research philosophy of dr. Jānis Krēsliņš bears the mark of his long tenure as Senior Academic Librarian for Research Affairs at the Kungliga biblioteket/National Library of Sweden. By engaging in an integrated fashion the rich, but seemingly disjoined collections, he has been able to reassess the various meanings of intellectual history and transgress borders between various disciplines and periods.  A common denominator in all these pursuits has been an awareness of the implications of the various ways of knowing for research and practice, as well as an awareness of the importance of materiality in our perception of history.  He has developed an increasing appreciation of the role that orality has had for memory, institutional and private, and the increasing role that oral strategies have played in our new digital environments. 

Prof. Luiz Oosterbeek

UNESCO Chairholder in Humanities and Cultural Integrated Landscape Management, Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal; Secretary-General of the International Council of Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH)

Luiz Oosterbeek graduated in History (Lisbon, 1982) and obtained his PhD in Archaeology (London, 1994). He is Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal, and Secretary-General of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences, Paris. His research interests cover archaeology, philosophy, heritage and landscape management in Portugal, Africa and Southern America. Prizes and awards: European Commission, Brazilian Lawyers Bar, Portuguese Ministry of Culture, Gulbenkian Foundation, Foundation for Science and Technology and several private sponsors. Author: over 300 papers and 50 books. President of ITM. Guest Professor at several Universities in Europe, Africa, Brazil and China. Vice-President of HERITY. Vice-Director of the Geosciences Centre of the University of Coimbra. Former Sec-General of UISPP. UNESCO chair holder “Humanities and Cultural Integrated Landscape Management”.

Liz Jolly

Chief Librarian of the British Library

Liz Jolly took up the role of a chief librarian at the British Library in September 2018. She has over twenty years’ experience in a variety of institutions in the university sector, most recently as Director of Student and Library Services at Teesside University. Prior to joining Teesside in 2008, Liz was Associate Director in Information and Learning Services at the University of Salford. An Honorary Professor at Teesside University, Liz is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow both of CILIP and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In 2014–2016, she was Chair of SCONUL. A former Trustee of CILIP, Liz is a member of the editorial board of ”The New Review of Academic Librarianship” and is a former member of the British Library Advisory Council.

Dr. Tomasz Makowski

Director General of the National Library of Poland, Head of the National Council for Libraries and Head of the National Reserve of Library Collections at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage

Dr. Tomasz Makowski has worked at the National Library since 1994. Before becoming Director General in 2007, he was Deputy Director General and Director for Research as well as Head of Special Collections. 

Dr. T. Makowski is the Head of the Museum of Warsaw Board and a board member of a large number of organizations and institutions in Poland and abroad, including UNESCO Memory of the World National Committee, The Fryderyk Chopin Institute and The Ossolinski Institute in Wroclaw. He is the editor-in-chief of “Polish Libraries” and ”Rocznik Biblioteki Narodowej” as well as a member of the “Przeglad Biblioteczny’ and the editorial committee of the yearbook of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In 2005, he was the curator of the first monographic exhibition about the Zamoyski Library (2005). He is Assistant Professor at the History of Libraries and Archives Department of the Institute of History at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. 

He is the author of four books (1996, 1998, 2005, 2014) and a number of articles and specializes in the history of libraries and manuscript studies.

Janne Andresoo

Director General of the National Library of Estonia

Janne Andresoo received her Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Sciences from the Tallinn University. After graduating she worked in the Tallinn University as lecturer, and continued teaching students part-time until 2008. In 1994, Janne Andresoo joined the National Library of Estonia and has since been with the Library, working in different positions (Head of National Bibliography Unit, Chief Bibliographer, Head of Research and Development Centre, Head of Collections Management Department). In 2008, Janne Andresoo was elected Director General of the Library and is currently serving her 3rd term as head of the institution. In 2013 she received MSc in Business Administration from the University of Tartu.
The affiliations of Janne Andresoo include positions in many national and international organisations and bodies – Vice-Chair of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries, Member of Estonian Museums Board, Member of Estonian Archives Board, Member of Board of the Tallinn University School of Digital Technologies. She has been Member of the Executive Committee of the Conference of European National Librarians, and Chairman of the Estonian Librarians Association.

Currently Janne Andresoo is focusing on preparing and carrying out major renovation of the National Library building, along with that continuing to implement innovative solutions into the work processes, to develop the organisation and make the Library relevant to a wider readership by applying service design methods and preparing special educational programmes for both children and adults.

Dr. Ingrida Veliutė

Vice Minister of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

Areas of activities of the Vice Minister of Culture: issues of policies of the cultural heritage and memory institutions, digitization and promotion of the cultural content.

In 2012, she graduated from the Vytautas Magnus University’s Faculty of Arts with a doctoral degree in Art Criticism in the field of Humanities. In 2008–2019, she was a lecturer and research fellow at the Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Arts. Public and expert activities: since 2007, member of the VMU cluster “Research on the Identity of the Lithuanian Art and Cultural Heritage”; since 2015, member of ICOMOS Lithuanian National Committee (Vice President in 2016–2019); since 2018, member of a group for monitoring of the implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.