Profile

It’s obvious that the needs and questions emerging from society today are really different to those one or two decades back. This calls for a radically different approach to library work. Instead of working to improve and modernize the service concepts of the library, we should aim for real change and innovation. 

Libraries should realize that the exchange of thoughts and ideas is a fundamental part of the process of developing new knowledge and insights. Therefore libraries have to take on a coordinating and inspiring role in enhancing the collective intelligence of the community. Not by doing everything themselves, but by empowering people in the community to share what they know. 

That way libraries will transform from a static depot of information into a dynamic and active social setting: a work center or laboratory where people meet to bring new ideas and opinions to prosperity and to test their ideas on all available sources (the collection and other library users), thereby continuously enriching the collection with new ideas and insights.  

I am a qualified librarian and is responsible for an innovative project called "Libraries 2040", which in the course of time has developed into a permanent laboratory and a creative learning environment for future libraries. I was program manager and promoter of new initiatives, such as The Library of 100 talents (a new concept for the children's library of the future) and The Architecture of Knowledge, in which principles for future library architecture are explored and the LibrarySchool, a new training course, aimed at educating the librarian of the future, in which learning, working and innovating are united. Now I am affiliated to the Ministry of Imagination, an innovative workplace for library architecture. I have published several books and articles on the future of libraries and am a much sought-after speaker at home and abroad. In 2019 I was awarded the oeuvre prize of the Royal Netherlands Association of Information Professionals (Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging van Informatieprofessionals) - together with his ’ministerial colleague’ Joyce Sternheim.

In December 2021 the book "Imagination and participation" was published, which I wrote together with colleague - minister Joyce Sternheim. The central question in the book is whether the changing role of the public library could lead to a new typology, a new building type with its own readable architecture. With this richly illustrated book we aim to inspire librarians, architects, planners and policy makers to bring about a truly innovative architecture that reflects the new role of public libraries in society.