“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
– Winnie-the-Pooh

After 8 utterly awesome and rewarding years with The Royal Danish Library / Copenhagen University Library it was the time for something new. From September 1st I will take on the position as director of libraries and citizens services in Roskilde Municipality

What?

The Roskilde Libraries are a wonderful library organism with one main library and 5 branch libraries, citizens services, 3 archives, a mobile library (a very very cool and colorful bus) and serves as central library for the region of Zealand and Bornholm (which means providing of materials and coordinating of library and skill development together with the municipalities in the region). All in all around 140 employees are with the libraries and citizens services in Roskilde.

Roskilde Municipality has 85.000 citizens and holds a reputation as a community that prioritize culture highly. There is a long and strong tradition of collaboration between libraries and the other institutions of culture, education, learning and experiences in the community. And then Roskilde is the home of one of my all time fave venues; The annual Roskilde Festival.

As director of libraries and citizens services I will join the leadership group of City, Culture and Environment and it’s expected that you don’t just deal with libraries but also put energy in developing the community in a broader sense which was one of the things I found appealing about the position.

Lots of stuff is going on with the libraries in Roskilde these days, months and years: The main library in Roskilde are gonna get a new main entrance so it will be more integrated with the upcoming ‘Street of Culture‘ which is gonna run parallel with the main downtown street in Roskilde. A new House of Culture for Children which is run by the library will open in the end of August. A totally new branch library is being build in Viby Zealand and a potential new library is on the rise in Jyllinge. Besides that it seems to be an extremely dynamic organization with high degree of performance, collaboration and development.

Why?

I truly believe that in order to continuously grow – both professional but also as person – we need to move ourselves sometimes. At least I do. I’ve been so happy with my carrier with The Royal Danish Library but never imagined that I should be in the organization forever and this was a chance to try something completely new, take a step up the leadership ladder and then it is just an awesome job and a great opportunity.

Also, over years I’ve been advocating about the importance of a higher degree of sector mobility between academic and public libraries (the mobility is close to zero in Denmark). I believe a higher mobility will foster more collaboration between the sectors which would benefit both students, researchers and citizens but also because I think that public and academic libraries can learn so much from each other. By this move I feel that I walk the talk and I will do what I can to promote actual collaboration between public and academic libraries.

I am looking forward to learn about public libraries, citizens services and the community in Roskilde. To advocate the value and importance of public libraries in our societies on national and global level. To meet all the people and try to make Roskilde a better place to live. And to learn more about myself.

Obvious I will keep on blogging about my new library life. Also follow along on Twitter and Instagram for all the new library adventures.

Cheers

Christian

Yours truly in front of the main library in Roskilde