Royal Danish Library

Abstract

Data and people will be the focus of the work of national libraries for the next decade. For centuries libraries have been about books and words, but now it is about data, to be handled and analyzed by machines as the basis for new services, ultimately giving new insight. Many national libraries have iconic buildings, old and new. In the digital age you could easily imagine a virtual national library: an office and storage building somewhere, but no ceremonial building, no reading rooms, no exhibition space, only digital presence. In my view, library buildings will still be part of the city landscape, as places for people to meet, to learn and reflect (and to eat and drink). National libraries have extensive collections. They are only alive, an asset to the public, to the extent that they are digitally accessible, and here we have the greatest challenge in my view, not least because of the present copyright regime. Different words have been used to describe a national library: memory institution, learning centre and so on. More than anything a national library is a service provider, and I am convinced that to succeed national libraries have to develop and deliver services in closer partnership with other organizations, especially other libraries, public, research and educational libraries. The Royal Danish Library (RDL) is a new entity among national libraries. The following text is a short introduction to this new entity with some suggestions as to the direction in which it is moving. The RDL is the result of mergers (2016) between Royal Library, Copenhagen (national library and Copenhagen University library and IT University library); State and University Library, Aarhus (national library and Aarhus University library); Danish National Art Library; The Administrative Library (library services to central government); Library functions from the Danish Centre for Research and Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity (KVINFO); Part of Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF): negotiation of e-resources for academic, research and educational libraries and development of shared services for research libraries.