Ticer

Course director

Kurt De Belder

Since 2005, Kurt De Belder has been University Librarian at Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands founded in 1575. Kurt's responsibilities include university-wide strategic planning and policy making in the area of scientific information provision and the integral management of Leiden University Libraries and Leiden University Press.

Kurt enjoys a broad and international library experience and worked at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, New York University and the Universiteit van Amsterdam. He has gained solid experience with regard to the implementation, improvement and innovation of work processes and services in research libraries. His main area of expertise is digital libraries, scholarly communication, e-publishing and e-learning.

Kurt has served as keynote speaker and has presented papers at conferences in the United States, Europe and Africa on topics relating to digital libraries, innovation, changing libraries and e-publishing. Kurt has also contributed to the library profession by serving on a variety of professional committees in the United States and the Netherlands. Currently, he is a member of the Supervisory Board of DEN (Digital Heritage Netherlands), Chair of the External Stakeholders Group of OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks, an EU funded project), and member of the Policy Group Innovation Knowledge Infrastructure, SURFfoundation.

Kurt was a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation, a Queen Beatrix Scholar and was elected to the International Library Honor Society. He is also a member of the Governing Board of the Society for Dutch Literature.

Kurt studied Germanic Philology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and specialized in Comparative Literature and in Library and Information Studies at the University of California, Berkeley