French National Librarian for chair

The Chief Executive of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Bruno Racine, has been elected to chair the Board of the Europeana Foundation, responsible for the EU's primary cultural heritage showcase, Europeana.eu.

Mr Racine takes over from Elisabeth Niggemann, Director of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Dr Niggemann was the Foundation's first chair from 2007. On taking up the post, Mr Racine paid tribute to the vision and determination of his predecessor, saying, 'I salute the remarkable work achieved by Elisabeth Niggemann in launching and consolidating Europeana'.

His election comes at a significant moment in the development of Europeana. Twenty million cultural artefacts – books, films, sounds and pictures – are now accessible through the portal. The European Commission has just announced its proposals for structural funding of Europeana from 2014-2020 through the Connecting Europe Facility, part of its investment in the Digital Agenda for Europe. Europeana is seen as a key advocate of the value of cultural heritage in digital innovation and creative enterprise and has been running events to develop mobile apps and making large datasets available for Linked Open Data initiatives.

Mr Racine will continue to develop Europeana's strategic role as a facilitator for new ideas in the cultural heritage sector. He sees Europeana as 'possibly the most important project in the field of culture in the EU. Our success lies in our network. The museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual collections have come together as a community that is finding new ways to connect users with their patrimony. Access to Europe's digitised knowledge on the scale that Europeana provides is awe-inspiring.'

Notes for Editors

Bruno Racine – biography

Bruno Racine has been Chairman and Chief Executive of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the French National Library, since March 2007.

Born in Paris in 1951, Bruno Racine studied at the most prestigious French grandes écoles, the Ecole normale supérieure, where he studied Classics, the Institut d'études politiques, and finally the Ecole nationale d'Administration (ENA), which forms France's elite civil servants.

Bruno Racine joined the Cour des Comptes, the French national audit jurisdiction, in 1979, before being appointed in 1986 to the Cabinet of Jacques Chirac, then Prime Minister. From 1988 to 1993, he was Director of Cultural Affairs of the city of Paris. In 1993, he headed the Centre d'analyse et de prévision at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before joining the Cabinet of Alain Juppé, then Prime Minister, where Mr Racine was in charge of strategic and cultural issues (1995-1997).

Bruno Racine headed the French Academy at the Villa Médicis in Rome from 1997 to 2002, before being appointed Chairman of the Pompidou Centre (2002-2007).

In September 2011, he was elected Chairman of the Conference of European National Libraries (CENL).

A distinguished author, Bruno Racine has written many books, among which are Google et le nouveau monde (2010), Le Côté d'Odessa (2007), Le Tombeau de la Chrétienne (2002), L'Art de vivre en Toscane (2000), Le Gouverneur de Morée (1982).

Europeana Foundation

The Chair of the Europeana Foundation is elected by the chiefs of the European cultural heritage associations. They represent the museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual collections whose content is represented in Europeana.

Europeana Foundation's Board of Participants:

ACE Association Cinémathèques Européennes
CENL Conference of European National Librarians
CERL Consortium of European Research Libraries
EMA European Museum Academy
EMF European Museum Forum
EURBICA European Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives
FIAT International Federation of Television Archives
ICOM Europe International Council of Museums Europe
IASA International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives
LIBER Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche
MICHAEL Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe

Founding Members:

BNE Biblioteca Nacional de España
BnF Bibliothèque nationale de France
INA Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, France
KB National Library of the Netherlands - Hosting organisation

Officers elected by the Council of Content Providers:

Francisco Barbedo, Portuguese Archives
Anne Bergman-Tahon, Federation of European Publishers
Louise Edwards, The European Library
Nick Poole, Collections Trust, UK
Henning Scholz, Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity
Hans van der Linden, Flemish Government, Art and Heritage Agency

Europeana.eu

Europeana brings together the digitised content of Europe's galleries, libraries, museums, archives and audiovisual collections. Currently Europeana gives integrated access to some 20 million books, films, paintings, museum objects and archival documents from some 1500 content providers. The content is drawn from every European member state and the interface is in 29 European languages. Europeana receives its main funding from the European Commission. More information can be found at http://www.europeana.eu.

Connecting Europe Facility

More information can be found here

Digital Agenda for Europe

More information can be found here.