Elisabeth Niggemann (born April 2, 1954) is a German librarian specializing in the digitization of cultural heritage resources. From 1999 to 2019, she served as the Director General of the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...

Education and career

Elisabeth Niggemann was born in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

on April 2, 1954. In college she studied biology and English, receiving a Ph.D. in biology from

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

. Niggemann started her career in libraries in 1987 at the

German National Library of Medicine German National Library of Medicine (german: Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Medizin), abbreviated ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences in Cologne, together with the Bonn site, is the central specialist library for medicine, public health ...

as head of the acquisitions department. In 1989, she became head of cataloguing and subject indexing at the University and State Library at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf; in 1994, she became director of that library. From 1990 to 1995 she also lectured in

library and information science Library and information science(s) or studies (LIS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that deals generally with organization, access, collection, and protection/regulation of information, whether in physical (e.g. art, legal proceedings, e ...

at Heinrich Heine University. Niggemann became the Director General of the

in 1999. In 2019, she announced her retirement, with Frank Scholze taking her place as Director General as of January 1, 2020.

Library leadership

In 2010, Niggemann was a member of the Comité des Sages, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

's high-level reflection group, examining the digitization of Europe's cultural heritage. She chaired the Conference of European National Librarians, a network of Europe’s national libraries, between 2005 and 2011. She was the first chair of the Europeana Foundation, from 2007 to 2011, helping to launch and consolidate the digital platform for cultural heritage. She was reelected as chair in September 2017, leading the Board of the Foundation to maintain the sustainability of Europeana. Niggemann is one of the editors of ''Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie''. She has also written or co-written a number of reports on cultural heritage strategies, including The New Renaissance (2011) and Fachinformationsdienste statt Sondersammelgebiete (2014). In March 2018, Niggeman was awarded Chevalier of the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' (Order of Arts and Letters) is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is ...

by the French government.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niggemann, Elisabeth 1954 births Living people People from Dortmund German librarians German women librarians Ruhr University Bochum alumni Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres